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Space Topics: Earth
Images of Earth from Planetary Spacecraft
The most recent addition to this page, on August 3, 2009,
came from the
Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
Lunar Orbiter sent back the first photo of Earth over the
Moon, but it was the Apollo
program that produced
the first widely publicized views of Earth as a colorful marble floating in
black space, images that revolutionized public perception of our fragile planet.
At the same time, the Soviets were capturing similarly dramatic images
from their Zond flyby
craft. Later, Clementine reprised
these views. As spacecraft began to launch on journeys to more distant planets,
never to return, their mission controllers often commanded them to take departing
views of Earth and the Moon. Mariner
10 and Voyager 1 both took such snapshots, as did Mars
Odyssey and Venus Express. Other spacecraft
traveling to eventual orbit around other planets required one or more gravity-assist
flybys of Earth; a year or more after their launches, Galileo,
Hayabusa, Rosetta,
and MESSENGER returned to the neighborhood, shooting
photos and even movies as they flew by. Some planetary travelers -- like Voyager
1, Mars Global Surveyor, Cassini,
Deep Impact, the Mars Exploration
Rover Spirit and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter --
were even able to turn toward Earth and capture distant glimpses of their home
planets from their eventual destinations. Now, with the dawning of an International
Lunar Decade and multiple missions returning to the Moon, new views are
coming from spacecraft like Kaguya and Chandrayaan-1.
Lunar Orbiter |
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Lunar Orbiter 1: First image of Earthrise over the Moon (1966)
Lunar Orbiter 1 was
the first spacecraft to capture an image of Earth rising over the lunar limb.
A higher-resolution version of this image can be downloaded from the Lunar and
Planetary Institute's Lunar Orbiter Photo Gallery.
Credit: NASA / LPI
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Apollo Program
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Apollo 8: Earthrise over the lunar horizon (December 24, 1968)
Earth rose over the lunar horizon as Apollo
8 completed the first manned
trip behind the far side of the Moon. The mission also returned the first
live television coverage of the lunar surface. Credit:
NASA |
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Apollo 11: Earthrise over the lunar horizon (July 16, 1969)
The lunar terrain as seen from Apollo
11 is in the
area of Smuth's Sea on the nearside. Coordinates of the center of the terrain
are 85 degrees east longitude and 3 degrees north latitude. Credit: NASA
Johnson Space Center (NASA-JSC) |
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Apollo 17: Iconic view of Earth (December 7, 1972)
One of the most famous images of the twentieth century, this view of the
fully lit globe of Earth was taken from Apollo
17 shortly after its launch.
The full view was enabled by the fortuitous alignment of Earth, spacecraft,
and the Sun. Credit: NASA |
Zond Program |
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Zond 5 image of Earth (September 18, 1968)
On September 18, 1968, Zond-5 became the first spacecraft to circle the Moon and return to land on Earth. It photographed Earth from a distance of 90,000 kilometers, but a subsequent malfunction of the orientation system prevented it from photographing the Moon.
Credit: Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography (MIIGAiK); caption by Don Mitchell
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Zond 6 image of Earth (November 14, 1968)
Zond-6 flew around the Moon on November 14, 1968. It carried the AFA-BAM camera with a 400-millimeter objecitve, shooting on 13 by 18-centimeter frames of isopanchromatic film. A session of 111 frames was performed at a distance of 9,290-6,843 km, and another session of 58 frames from 2,660-2,430 km.
A crash landing on Earth flattened and broke open the film canister, but 52 photographs were recovered with some degree of laceration and fogging. Only a few fragments of Zond-6 images have been published. Poor print quality, not film damage, is the reason for the low quality of this image.
Credit: Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography (MIIGAiK); caption by Don Mitchell
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Zond 7 image of Earth (August 11, 1969)
Zond-7 photographed Earth on August 9 and performed two photo sessions at the Moon on August 11, 1969. It shot 35 pictures with the SKD camera and 300 mm objective, on 5.6 by 5.6-centimeter frames of color and panchromatic film.
Credit: Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography (MIIGAiK); caption by Don Mitchell
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Earthset from Zond 7 (August 11, 1969)
Zond 7 flew past the Moon, taking this sequence of images of Earth setting
behind the lunar limb, on August 9, 1969. The sequence actually consists of
only three images; the second one was simulated from data in the others to even
out the Earthset sequence. Credit: Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography
(MIIGAiK) / Ted Stryk
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Zond 8 Earthset photo & animation (October 24, 1970)
Zond-8 flew by the Moon and returned to Earth with high quality photographs,
some from as close as 1,350 km. Images were shot with the 400 mm AFA-BAM camera,
on 13 by 18-centimeter frames of isopanchromatic film. A session of 20 full-Moon
pictures was followed by a session of 78 lunar-surface pictures (including 17
shots of Earth over the lunar horizon). Credit: Moscow State University of Geodesy
and Cartography (MIIGAiK); caption by Don Mitchell; animation by Emily Lakdawalla
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Mariner 10
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Mariner 10: Earth and Moon (November 3, 1973)
Within 12 hours of its launch, Mariner
10 turned on
its cameras to capture several hundred high-resolution digital color pictures
of the Earth-Moon system. In this view, Earth and Moon were imaged by Mariner
10 from 2.6 million kilometers (1.6 million miles). Two images were combined
to illustrate the relative sizes of the two bodies. Credit: NASA / JPL |
Voyager 1
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Voyager 1: Crescent Earth and Moon (September 18, 1977)
This picture of a crescent-shaped Earth and Moon -- the first of its kind
ever taken by a spacecraft -- was recorded by Voyager
1 when it was 11.66 million
kilometers (7.25 million miles) from Earth. Credit: NASA / JPL
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Voyager 1: Pale Blue Dot (February 14, 1990)
This image of Earth is one of 60 frames taken by the Voyager
1 spacecraft
from a distance of more than 6 billion kilometers
(4 billion miles) and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In the
image Earth is a mere point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in
size. Our planet was caught in the center of one of the scattered light
rays resulting from taking the image so close to the Sun. Credit: NASA
/ JPL |
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Voyager 1: Pale Blue Dot - Detail
Credit: NASA
/ JPL |
Galileo
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Galileo: Antarctica Mosaic (December 8, 1990)
This color picture of the limb of the Earth, looking north past Antarctica,
is a mosaic of 11 images taken during a ten-minute period near 5:45 p.m.
PST Dec. 8, 1990, by Galileo's imaging system. Red, green and violet
filters were used. The picture spans about 1,600 miles across the south
polar latitudes of our planet. The morning day/night terminator is toward
the right. The South Pole is out of sight below the picture; the visible
areas of Antarctica are those lying generally south of South America.
The violet-blue envelope of Earth's atmosphere is prominent along the
limb to the left. At lower left, the dark blue Amundsen Sea lies to the
left of the Walgreen and Bakutis Coasts. Beyond it, Peter Island reacts
with the winds to produce a striking pattern of atmospheric waves. Credit:
JPL / NASA |
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Galileo: Global Images of Earth (December 11, 1990)
These images were taken during Galileo's first Earth flyby. In each frame,
the continent of Antarctica is visible at the bottom of the globe. South
America may be seen in the first frame (top left), the great Pacific Ocean
in the second (bottom left), India at the top and Australia to the right
in the third (top right), and Africa in the fourth (bottom right). The
images were taken at six-hour intervals on December 11, 1990, at a range
of between 2 and 2.7 million kilometers (1.2 to 1.7 million miles). Galileo's
closest approach (960 kilometers, or 597 miles, above the Earth's surface)
to the Earth was on December 8, 1990, 3 days before these pictures were
taken. Each of these images is a color composite, made up using images
taken through red, green, and violet filters. Credit: JPL / NASA |
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Galileo: Earth flyby animation (December 11-12, 1990)
As Galileo receded from its first flyby of Earth on December 11 and 12,
it took images of Earth in six different filters almost every minute over
a 25-hour period. The animation at leftincludes images taken once an hour,
representing about a tenth of the full number of frames. Click
here for a version of this movie at Galileo's full resolution with
images taken every half-hour (Quicktime format, 1.1 MB). Credit: NASA /
JPL / Doug Ellison |
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Galileo: Earth - Moon Conjunction (December 16 and 17, 1992)
Eight days after its second gravity-assist flyby of Earth, the Galileo
spacecraft looked back from a distance of about 6.2 million kilometers
(3.9 million miles) to capture this remarkable view of the Moon in
orbit about Earth. The composite photograph was constructed from
images taken through visible (violet, red) and near-infrared (1.0-micron)
filters. The Moon is in the foreground; its orbital path is from
left to right. Brightly colored Earth contrasts strongly with the
Moon, which reacts only about one-third as much sunlight as our world.
To improve the visibility of both bodies, contrast and color have
been computer enhanced. At the bottom of Earth's disk, Antarctica
is visible through clouds. The Moon's far side can also be seen.
The shadowy indentation in the Moon's dawn terminator -- the boundary
between its dark and lit sides -- is the South Pole-Aitken Basin,
one of the largest and oldest lunar impact features. Credit: JPL
/ NASA
The animation includes 56 frames, each separated by 15 minutes, spanning
14 hours. Click
here for a full-resolution version in Quicktime format (151 kb).
Credit: JPL / NASA / Doug Ellison
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Clementine
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Clementine: Earth crescent (February 11, 1994)
Clementine snapped this photo from lunar orbit on February 11, 1994.
India is visible toward the top of the image, with south toward the left.
Credit: Naval Research Laboratory |
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Clementine: Earth over the Moon (March 13, 1994)
Clementine peered over the limb of the Moon on March 13, 1994 to view
a distant, nearly full-disk Earth. The large crater at the bottom of
the view is Plaskett at 82°N, 180°W. In the original image, Earth
was much farther above the Moon; the image has been modified to make
it better fit on a computer screen. Credit: Naval Research Laboratory |
2001 Mars Odyssey
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Mars Odyssey: Earth and Moon in thermal infrared (April 19,
2001)
As 2001 Mars Odyssey receded from Earth, it captured
a departing view of its home planet and the Moon. This view is in thermal
infrared wavelengths, so brightness and darkness represents more or less
heat being emitted from the globes. The dark spot on Earth is the cold
south pole; the bright spot above it is the warm land surface of Australia.
Mars Odyssey was more than 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles) from
Earth and the Moon when it took this photo, and achieved a resolution of
about 900 kilometers. From this distance and perspective the camera was
able to acquire an image that directly shows the true distance from Earth
to the Moon. Earth's diameter is about 12,750 kilometers (7,922 miles),
and the distance from Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers (239,000
miles), corresponding to 30 Earth diameters. Credit: NASA / JPL / U. Arizona |
Mars Global Surveyor
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Mars Global Surveyor: Earth and Moon from Mars (May 8, 2003)
This is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that actually
shows our home as a planetary disk. Because Earth and the Moon are closer
to the Sun than Mars, they exhibit phases, just as the Moon, Venus, and
Mercury do when viewed from Earth. As seen from Mars by Mars
Global Surveyor on May 8, 2003 at 13:00 GMT (6:00 AM PDT), Earth and the Moon appeared
in the evening sky. The Earth/Moon image has been specially processed to
allow both Earth (with an apparent magnitude of -2.5) and the much darker
Moon (with an apparent magnitude of +0.9) to be visible together. The bright
area at the top of the image of Earth is cloud cover over central and eastern
North America. Below that, a darker area includes Central America and the
Gulf of Mexico. The bright feature near the center-right of the crescent
Earth consists of clouds over northern South America. The image also shows
the Earth-facing hemisphere of the Moon, since the Moon was on the far
side of Earth as viewed from Mars. The slightly lighter tone of the lower
portion of the image of the Moon results from the large and conspicuous
ray system associated with the crater Tycho. Credit: NASA / JPL / Malin
Space Science Systems |
Mars Exploration Rover Spirit
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Spirit: Earth as Seen from Mars' Surface, March 7, 2004
This is the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet
beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars
Exploration Rover Spirit one
hour before sunrise on the 63rd martian day, or sol, of its mission. The
image is a mosaic of images taken by the rover's navigation camera showing
a broad view of the sky, and an image taken by the rover's panoramic camera
of Earth. The contrast in the panoramic camera image was increased two
times to make Earth easier to see. The inset shows a combination of four
panoramic camera images zoomed in on Earth. The arrow points to Earth.
Earth was too faint to be detected in images taken with the panoramic camera's
color filters. Credit: NASA / JPL / Cornell / Texas A&M |
Hayabusa
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Hayabusa: Earth flyby (May 18, 2004)
Japan's Hayabusa snapped this image of Earth during its flyby on May
18, 2004 at 15:00 UTC. Four of Earth's continents are clearly visible
-- North America at left, South America at the bottom, Africa on the
right, and eastern Europe above it. Credit: ISAS / JAXA / Emily Lakdawalla |
Rosetta
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Rosetta: Receding Earth (March 7, 2005)
Rosetta snapped this view of Earth through its Navigation Camera as it
was flying away from the Earth having completed the closest-ever fly-by
performed by an ESA mission on the previous day. At the bottom, Antarctica
can be seen on the right, below South America. Credit: ESA |
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Tosetta: Crescent Earth (November 13, 2007)
This unusual photo of a crescent Earth was taken by the OSIRIS wide-angle
camera on Rosetta about two hours before closest approach on its second
Earth flyby. Antarctica lies at the
bottom of the crescent. Credit: ESA © 2005 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS
/ UPD / LAM / IAA / RSSD / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA |
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Rosetta looks back at Earth (November 15, 2007)
After its closest approach to Earth, Rosetta looked back and took a number
of images using the spacecraft's Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared
Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). This image,
acquired November 15, 2007, is a color composite of the NAC Orange, Green,
and Blue filters. At the bottom, the continent of Australia can be seen
clearly. This version of the image has been flipped (mirrored) horizontally
to match the correct orientation. Credit: ESA © 2005
MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / RSSD / INTA / UPM / DASP
/ IDA |
Rosetta looks back at Earth (corrected orientation)
After its closest approach to Earth, Rosetta looked back and took a number of images using the spacecraft's Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). This image, acquired November 15, 2007, is a color composite of the NAC Orange, Green, and Blue filters. At the bottom, the continent of Australia can be seen clearly.
Credit: ESA © 2005 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / RSSD / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA
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MESSENGER
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MESSENGER: Earth in true and false color (August 2, 2005)
This pair of images represents the same viewpoint on Earth through two
different sets of filters on the MESSENGER spacecraft. On top, three filters
in red, green, and blue wavelengths were combined to make an image that
approximates what the human eye would see. The green mass at the center
is the Amazon jungle of South America. The deserts of West Africa are just
visible on the edge of the Earth's disk below and to the right of South
America. The bottom image is "pushed" into the near infrared;
instead of red, green, and blue, it is composed of images taken through
near-infrared, red, and green filters. Chlorophyll, the green pigment in
plant leaves, is very strongly reflective at near infrared wavelengths,
much more so than it is in red or green wavelengths, so the vegetated parts
of Earth burst into bright red color. The spacecraft was 102,918 kilometers
(63,950 miles) away from Earth when the images were taken. At full resolution,
they represent only 1/10 the level of detail that MDIS will achieve in
its global, multispectral mapping of Mercury. Credit: NASA / JHUAPL |
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MESSENGER: Receding movie of Earth (August 2, 2005)
As MESSENGER retreated from its gravity-assist flyby of Earth, it captured
a full day's worth of images of Earth's receding crescent, which were assembled
into a movie. This animation contains only 17 of the 358 frames captured
by MESSENGER; you can download
the full (5-Megabyte) animation at the MESSENGER website. Credit: NASA
/ JHUAPL |
Venus Express
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Venus Express: Earth and Moon (November 2005)
Shortly after launch, Venus Express turned to Earth to perform preliminary
commissioning of its instruments. These images were captured by VIRTIS,
Venus Express' high resolution imaging system. This sequence of four images
of Earth and the Moon was designed to obtain the best signal possible from
the Moon, so Earth is overexposed. The brightest image (upper right) is
in a visible wavelength; the image below it is in ultraviolet; and the
two left pairs are in infrared wavelengths. Credit: ESA / MPS |
Cassini
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Cassini: Earth and Moon as a distant dot (September
15, 2006)
Not since Voyager 1 saw our home as a pale blue dot from
beyond the orbit of Neptune has Earth been imaged in color from the outer
solar system. Now, Cassini casts powerful eyes on our home planet, and
captures the pale blue orb of our Earth -- and a faint suggestion of our
Moon -- among the glories of the Saturn system.
Earth is captured here in a natural color portrait made possible by the
passing of Saturn directly in front of the Sun from Cassini's point of
view. At the distance of Saturn's orbit, Earth is too narrowly separated
from the Sun for the spacecraft to safely point its cameras and other instruments
toward its birthplace without protection from the Sun's glare.
The Earth-Moon system is visible as a bright blue point on the right side
of the image above center. Here, Cassini is looking down on the Atlantic
Ocean and the western coast of north Africa.
A magnified view of the image taken through the clear filter (monochrome)
shows the Moon as a dim protrusion to the upper left of Earth. Credit:
NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute |
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: Crescent Earth and Moon (September 8,
2005)
A month after launch, Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter turned to the crescent-phase Earth-Moon system to test and calibrate
its cameras. The exposure of this Context Camera (CTX) image was set
for the relatively dim Moon, so Earth is overexposed. Earth and the Moon
were about 10 million kilometers from the spacecraft when this image
was taken. Credit: NASA / JPL / MSSS |
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars
(October 3, 2007)
At the time the
image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles)
from Mars. On the Earth image, the west coast outline of South America
is visible at lower right, although the clouds are the dominant features.
The exposure of this image was set for the relatively dark Moon; Earth
was so bright that it saturated the HiRISE detector in two of the three
color channels, so this version of the image required significant processing.
Credit: NASA / JPL / U. Arizona |
Kaguya
(SELENE)
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Earth from Kaguya
Kaguya took this photo of Earth using its HDTV camera from a distance of 110,000 kilometers (68,000 miles). It is the farthest that any HDTV camera has ever traveled from Earth. This is a still image, but it was taken as part of a test of the camera's ability to shoot video.
Credit: JAXA / NHK
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Earthrise and Earthset from Kaguya
Kaguya took these photos of Earthrise
and Earthset using its wide-angle (upper left) and telephoto (all other
images) HDTV camera from lunar orbit on November 7, 2007. The spacecraft's
polar orbit takes it from south to north behind the lunar farside,
giving it an Earthrise every orbit as it rises above the north pole
and an Earthset half an orbit later as it sinks behind the south pole.
When these images were taken Kaguya's wide-angle HD camera was pointed
forward along the orbit to capture the Earthrise; the telephoto camera
faced backwards, to see Earthset. Credit: JAXA / NHK / animation by
Emily Lakdawalla |
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Earthset from Kaguya
Kaguya captured this movie of a full Earth setting behind the lunar limb
with its high-definition camera on April 5, 2008. A Flash version of
the movie may be viewed here.
Credit: JAXA / NHK |
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Crescent Earthrise
Kaguya shot this lovely view of a crescent Earth, its thin atmosphere
backlit by the Sun, on April 19, 2008. Credit: JAXA / NXK |
Deep Impact
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Deep Impact view of Earth and the Moon (May 29, 2008)
Deep Impact took this photo
of Earth and the Moon together as a part of its EPOXI extended mission,
a search for extrasolar planets. The color image was snapped from nearly
50 milion kilometers (30 million miles) away on May 29, 2008 at 06:40
UTC, at a time when the Moon was transiting Earth as seen from Deep Impact.
The image is a still from an
animation of the Moon transiting Earth (Quicktime
format, 1 MB). Credit: NASA / JPL / UMD / GSFC |
Chandrayaan-1
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Earth from Chandrayaan-1 (October 29, 2008)
Chandrayaan-1 took this photo of Earth from Earth orbit on October 29,
2008 at 07:00 UTC. Near the center of the disk is the northwestern coast
of Australia; the Sun glints off the Indian Ocean adjacent to that coast.
This image has been flipped horizontally from its originally published
version to match the proper orientation. Credit: ISRO |
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Full Earth from Chandrayaan-1 (March 25, 2009)
Chandrayaan-1 captured this view of a nearly full Earth on March 25,
2009 at 07:03:03 UTC. India is at the center of the image. Credit: ISRO |
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Earth and the Moon from Chandrayaan-1 (July 22, 2009)
This image is not from the orbiter's camera; it was captured by the Moon
Mineralogy Mapper (M3), a spectrometer contributed to the Indian mission
by NASA. M3 is designed to map lunar minerals in infrared wavelengths,
which are longer than the human eye can see, so the photo is "false
color." Australia is visible in the lower center of the image.
Oceans appear as dark blue, clouds are white, and vegetation an enhanced
green. Credit: NASA / JPL / Brown |
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