Mars spacecraft captures image of Earth as a distant dot

Rob Waugh
·Contributor
·2 min read
4
The Earth as seen from Mars (ESA)
The Earth as seen from Mars (ESA)

An image captured by the Mars Express orbiter shows a view of our planet and its moon from orbit around the Red Planet, more than 180 million miles away.

The image was released to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the orbiter which previously showed the history of water on Mars – showing that the planet might once have harboured life.

The sequence of images was acquired by the super resolution channel (SRC) of Mars Express’s high resolution stereo camera (HRSC), which is primarily used for observing Mars’s two moons and the stars.

They show the Earth and its moon on 15, 21 and 27 May, and 2 June. This covers more than half of the moon’s monthly orbit around Earth.

The final image in the sequence marked the anniversary of the launch of Mars Express on 2 June 2003.

The researchers say they hoped to capture the feeling of the famous ‘pale blue dot’ image captured in 1990 by NASA’s Voyager 1 as it looked back towards Earth.

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The image moved Sagan to make his influential speech reflecting on Earth as the only world known so far to harbour life and underscoring our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to take care to preserve our home planet.

The Pale Blue Dot image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan's book,
The pale blue dot image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan's book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. (NASA)

More than three decades have passed since that iconic image was taken, during which time numerous space probes have similarly turned to image Earth as they voyage on to their destinations far and wide in the Solar System.

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Rovers and orbiters around Mars have also sent their share of snapshots while exploring Mars.

Jorge Hernández Bernal, of the Mars Express team, said: “On the special occasion of Mars Express’s 20th anniversary since launch, we wanted to bring Carl Sagan’s reflections back to the present day, in which the worsening climate and ecological crisis make them more valid than ever.

“In these simple snapshots from Mars Express, Earth has the equivalent size as an ant seen from a distance of 100 metres, and we are all in there. Even though we have seen images like these before, it is still humbling to pause and think: we need to look after the pale blue dot, there is no planet B.”

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