An image taken of Earth from the surface of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. NASA JPL-CALTECH/MSSS/TAMU
NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured its first images of earth from the red planet, with the earth appearing as a bright light in the Martian sky.
This is the first time the earth has been photographed from the surface of another planet, although the Spirit rover captured an image of the moon from Mars in 2004, and the Cassini spacecraft photographed earth from behind the rings of Saturn last November. The most famous image of earth, however, is likely the single pixel “pale blue dot” captured by Voyager 1 in 1990 from 6 billion kilometres away.
The images that make up this picture were taken about 80 minutes after sunset on 31st January, Curiosity’s 529th day on the planet – with the earth about 160 million kilometres away.
The rover recently crossed a one metre high sand dune in an area called Dingo Gap, and is awaiting a decision as to whether it will head towards the lower slopes of Mount Sharp or take a look into Gale Crater over the coming months.