Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars Orbit

Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars Orbit
Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars Orbit This image of Earth and the moon was captured on October 3, 2007 by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA / JPL / U. Arizona

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.