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DigitalGlobe
Worshipers crowd around the Kaaba shrine in the Saudi city of Mecca, venerated as the most sacred site in Islam, in a satellite picture from DigitalGlobe. The image was captured from orbit on Nov. 2, just before the beginning of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. During the Hajj, millions of Muslims walk counterclockwise seven times around the Kaaba.
'Tis the season for religious holidays, including Hanukkah for Jews and Christmas for Christians. But the Muslim world has already marked its biggest religious observance of the year, with an orbiting satellite as a witness.
Today's offering for the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar adds an Islamic twist to the holiday countdown: Here's a picture from DigitalGlobe showing thousands of people gathering around the Kaaba shrine in Mecca on Nov. 2, just before the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Participating in the Hajj is a duty able-bodied Muslims are required to perform at least once in their lives. The capstone of the experience is the Eid al-Adha, a festival that commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael to God.
The scriptural story serves to illustrate the linkages between different religious traditions. Whether you observe Eid al-Adha or Hanukkah, Advent or none of the above, here's wishing you wider perspectives on the world and its inhabitants during this holiday season.
Some of those wider perspectives are on view in our Month in Space Pictures slideshow, which we've just published for November. Here's a lineup of links for the pictures included in the slideshow, plus pointers to some other space-themed Advent calendars:
- On the beam: Laser at ESO observatory in Chile
- Moon over air: Our planet and the moon, seen from orbit.
- On to Mars! Launch of the Mars Science Laboratory.
- After the landing: Recovery team converges on Soyuz craft.
- Chilly homecoming: Japanese astronaut back on Earth.
- Does Pacman have teeth? WISE view of a colorful nebula.
- Southern exposure: Partial solar eclipse seen from New Zealand.
- Trail of trouble: Stranded Russian probe streaks across sky.
- Back from a mock Mars: Volunteers end 520-day simulation.
- Quartet of moons: Cassini spots four satellites amid Saturn's rings.
- A little lunar base: Exhibit takes shape at New York museum.
- Flooding in Bangkok: DigitalGlobe's view of high waters in Thailand.
- The Tarantula roars: Space telescopes focus on a spidery nebula.
- Blastoff in a blizzard: Soyuz rocket takes off for space station.
- Freakishly flat: ESO looks at a remarkably flat galaxy.
- The first and the last: Shuttle crews from STS-1 and STS-135.
- Crazy storm on Saturn: Cassini documents long-lasting cloud system.
- Welcome to the aliens: Greetings from New Zealand seen by satellite.
- Go with the flow: NASA satellite tracks lava from Hawaii volcano.
- After the launch: NPP satellite liftoff leaves behind a trail in the sky.
- More space slideshows from msnbc.com.
- Hubble Advent calendar from The Atlantic's In Focus.
- Space Advent calendar from Zooniverse.
Check back on Saturday for the next installment of our Advent calendar, which will be featuring new views of Earth from space every day until Christmas.
Correction for 2:10 a.m. ET Dec. 3: Space consultant Charles Lurio pointed out that in Islamic tradition, it's Ishmael who is offered to God by Abraham. I originally went with Isaac, in accordance with Genesis 22, but in this context I guess I should go with the Koran's version of the story. Many thanks to Charles for setting me straight.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
C'mon man! You can't use something from a month ago!
For this calendar you may see some pictures that are years old, man ;-) I am trying to emphasize pics that are more recent, but last year we went all the way back to 1968. (Can you guess which picture I'm thinking about? The number 8 will give you a clue.)
Proud to see the Muslims have the press on their side. Wonder how much they paid the author?
Not a cent. Render unto Caesar...
Looks like a lovely place for a USAF Reaper to visit. "Oh please don't bother getting up!"
Yeah, that'll eliminate the threat. Go ahead. Play right into the hands of the extremists. Turn absolutely every Muslim on Earth against us, and gain nothing in the process. (The Japanese city of Kyoto was taken off the list of potential nuke targets, because of its cultural value and the conclusion that the Japanese, whom we'd still have to live with after the war, would never forgive its destruction. If you somehow think Mecca has any less meaning, you've paid no attention at all.)
Check out the movie 'Salt.' The villains (who were neither US nor Muslim, but understood the certain reaction) wanted to do pretty much the same thing.
LordFoul, that's exactly what I was thinking but I would never say it on the Internet. Never!
The last army that tried that was completely destroyed by The Creator of the Universes. It was an army with every solider riding an elephant. This occurred years before Mohammed was born. Go check the history yourself!! Go ahead try it again..let's see what happens.
"Ture Believer", you are officially a MORON. A "ture" moron to boot!
Love to cut up that space-rock & sell it on e-bay.Wonder if the great moon-god could stop me??? lol :P
So much hate. I feel sorry for all of you. Truly disgusting.
I know some really great people from the Mideast. Most people realize every culture has it's bad elements. Let's face it as far as cultures go, the Mideast has a lot of backward reprehensible things to work on. Stop and consider how women are abused at so many levels, Sharia law being the scourge it is. Just those two examples alone if detailed could fill a book.
Many American's didn't know much about the middle eastern cultures before 9/11 and what they did learn shocked them. I say Shocked because many people believed we as a world had come farther than that in 21st century. Sure there are bigots, and hate filled people out there, but there are also reasonable people who appreciate the good they learned about but were also disgusted at the bad.
Wonder why it is that American Moon-Bats don't give a s**t about Muslim Women ? Speak up hairy-legged bitches or forever hold your peace.
Your right muslims are full of hate & superstitious non-sense .
"& every soldier was riding an elephant..." lol is this moron for real???
icetrout:
You should be ashamed of such behavior. My best friend is a Muslim and I'M A JEW. It is comments, ignorance and hatred like yours that needs to take a rest. NOT ALL ALL HATEFUL OR SUPERSTITIOUS. I guess it depends on how you are raised, enough said!!!!!
yeah, America, land of the free, where you are free to be as stupid as you can be, if you live...
People spead all this hate all the time, no one has the right to hate people just because, no true reason just whatever stupid ass hole reason that comes up in their ass hole thinking minds, it is said that all men were made in God's image, it didn't say just one color of men, it didn't say rich man or middle class men or only poor man, it said all men, so with that being said we were all made in his image, what happened to thou shall not judge or thou shall not kill, and all we do is judge everyone else and some go to the extreme as to kill people , so when did it become alright to kill someone just because you don't like them. every one of us have to meet our maker when we die, no matter who each of us believe who or what our maker is.
You raise a good point, but, last time I checked, Islam is not a race, a colour, or a genetic group. It is a religion. As a religion, an idea, it may be hated, despised, reviled, and spat upon, in My opinion, with total impunity.
As I am prone to say, I hate Islam, however, I do not hate all Muslims.
Or, as a Christian might say, hate the sin, not the sinner.
Ishmael? The Bible says Isaac. Ishmael was sent away along with his mother, because it was not God's plan for Abraham to have a son by the servant girl.
Yes, it appears that Mohammed attempted to rewrite history when he wrote the Quoran. The Genesis story is much older. It's obvious when the Quoran talks about the existence of Christians and Jews, instead of Hebrews or specific Hebrew tribes. There is no reference to Muslims or Islam in the Bible, not even in any writings of the New Testament. They didn't exist at the time. It had to be Isaac, Abraham's legitimate son, that God told Abraham to sacrifice, because it would be through his (Isaac's) Hebrew bloodline that the true Lamb of God would be provided to be sacrificed for the sins of the world.
Blah blah blah blah blah. And the horn shall be on the head, and he shall wield a nine bladed sword - not two, or five, or seven - but nine blades, which he shall yield on all wretched sinners, just like you sir, there. And there shall, in those times, be rumors of things going astray. And the yound shall not know where lieth the things posessed by their fathers, that their fathers put there just the night before, at about 8 o-clock.
If there is a god, then this must be hello and he is punishing us by leaving all of us sane people to deal with you crazy religious two-faced mentally-diseased retards.
It's the same vitriol Christians get when there is a story related to their faith (albeit less volume). Some people have to justify their belief system by denegrating others. Truly sad
WOW! Would ya just LOOK at all those superstitious people! Looks like ants coming out of their mound on a Spring day (and the Kaaba is the sugar block).
These guys spend all this energy to walk around an old stone building, and they worship a meteorite! The height of ignorance, and one of the more Draco-nian mind-controlling religions for the masses. Somewhere out there, something is laughing at us, and probably rubbing thier clawed hands together hissing EXcellent - like a certain Mr. Burns.
So sad that people believe in this claptrap nonsense, and kill and abuse, and oppress via these religions - that were devised as a way to control the masses, and to divide them. And I include ALL ridiculous religions derived from ancient texts written by power-tripping old "men" millennia ago. SO SO sad. Crazy-making shackles for the mind.
Heloo , I am a Muslim from middle east (the Arabs Peninsula ) , and its shock me to realize how much hate is there in some people in the country for us just for being Muslims , although we absolutely doesn’t share the same feeling for you,
Christians , or any other religion .
Its really really gave me a new perspective for how to
lock to things. So sad for you’ll guys ,cause if you spread hate to the
universe it’ll come just back to you . that’s
why ill not share with you the same feeling
always remember
Thanks for that nice message. I think that there are haters in all groups. And it seems to be, it is the violent haters who rise to power, because they will stop at nothing, and they have the capacity to kill and cheat in order to win. So the peaceful are usually not the ones to get into a position of power. And so, the Muslim, the Christians and the Jews eahc have their own examples of their faith being the basis for hate and violence. But your message reminds us that there is peace and love.
But still we need to ban religion, it does nothing good and it distracts mankind from reaching peace and harmony, and instead drives us into war and ignorance.
Seven times around. Did it fall down?
Seven times around. Did it fall down?
Religion is a mental disease. from it springs forth the most vile, two-faced people. All religion divides, and the worst offenders are Christians, Muslims and Jews. These 3 all share the same God, and all fight amongst themselves over whom their god loves the most. In doing so, they have brought war and death to the planet, and have inhibited the natural growth that would have had us by now living in peace and harmony while settling the cosmos. It is time that this planet grows out of it's immature make-believe world of superstition, before the religous nuts and self-fulfill their prophecy and end our world. Amen.
Religion poisons the mind, unfortunately it is needed or else we would not have invented it along with a creator who somehow, someway happened to be.
In the interest of equal time I say
post a photo representative of each religion,
beginning with the cult of Spring Break, Cancun, Mexico;
afterward everyone say a prayer to the true God.
Is the true god a porcelain one, that you fall to your knees in front of and wrap your arms around? That would be the ultimate spring break god.
I am surprised you morons can read and write.
I love islam and muslim..