Earth And The Moon As Seen From Mars

This great looking photo above is of the Earth and Moon, as seen from Mars. It was acquired on October 3, 2007, by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

At the time the image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of about 90 pixels and a moon diameter of 24 pixels. The phase angle is 98 degrees, which means that less than half of the disk of the Earth and the disk of the moon have direct illumination. We could image Earth and moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, but then the range would be much greater and the image would show less detail.

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Tags: MarsOrbiter, MarsSurveyer, MoonDisk HiRISECamera