Three words: Earth, world, realm. Home to everyone who has ever lived, who is living, and  who will live (at least in the immediate future). This image from the vantage point of space is symbolic of beginnings. The first questions of our origins, religious, philosophical and scientific, they all begin here. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Questions still hotly debated, but they all start here on this blue orb of terra firma. Certainly, this is our world, our realm. But does it end here? Do we end here? And did we even begin here?

This image is slightly Kubrickian, yes, and it’s certainly an ode to the famous earth-rise photograph by the Apollo astronauts, but I love this visual as a beginning to this story ( or to any story for that matter). Hard to top, actually. It is so simple yet so profound.

— SM