What do the Earth and Moon look like from Mars? To answer this question, NASA has released a photograph of Earth and the Moon taken by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The NASA shot, which was initially taken on October 3, 2007, was released on the agency's official Twitter account. NASA tweeted about the post, and I shared it "This image of Earth and the Moon was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Each of our seven Mars robots is functioning as our eyes as they explore the Red Planet, improving our awareness and affection for our blue one."
The Earth is obscured by clouds in the NASA image, while the moon has little detail visible. "The west coast outline of South America may be seen in the lower right corner of the Earth picture, however, the clouds are the prominent feature.
When compared to the moon, these clouds are so brilliant that they appear saturated in the HiRISE photographs "NASA stated. It went on to say that for this composite, the moon picture is unsaturated but brightened relative to Earth. The lunar photos can be used to calibrate the camera.
According to NASA, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars at the time the image was taken, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of around 90 pixels, and a moon diameter of 24 pixels.
"The phase angle is 98 degrees, which implies that less than half of the Earth's and moon's disks get direct illumination. We could picture the Earth and Moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the other side of the sun from Mars, but the range would be much larger and the image would be much less detailed "NASA also said.
It is known that NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched from Cape Canaveral in 2005 in quest of proof that water existed on Mars's surface for an extended period.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began searching for the history of water on Mars with its research equipment after a seven-month journey to Mars and six months of aerobraking to achieve its science orbit.
The equipment zoom in for extreme close-up photos of the Martian surface analyzes minerals, search for subterranean water, tracks how much dust and water are dispersed in the atmosphere, and monitors global weather regularly.
