A Look Into the Spiritual Side Effects of Viewing Earth from Outer Space

This article was originally written by Kelsey Dallas for Deseret News. The following is an excerpt.

Writing in Medium about a new image of Earth released July 20 by NASA scientists and dubbed the “new Blue Marble,” astronaut Scott Kelly said, “There’s something remarkable about a single snapshot of Earth — an intact view of our planet in its entirety, hanging in space.”

There’s also something spiritual about it, noted Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University and adjunct assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Sometimes a photo by itself is enough to change people,” helping them recognize the “deep interconnectedness of all things,” he said.

In the 43 years since the original “Blue Marble” gave non-astronauts the opportunity to view Earth from outer space, images of our home planet have become ubiquitous. And yet, as the latest photo illustrates, the experience remains awe-inspiring, leading people to ponder their place in the universe.

Newberg works to harness these kind of reflections in his work with The Overview Institute, an organization centered on improving people’s relationships to each other by capitalizing on the power of outer space. The institute is named after a theory called “the overview effect,” which posits that space travel fundamentally shifts how an astronaut perceives life on Earth.

Read the full article at deseretnews.com.