So how do you think our home planet would appear to someone from another world? It was not until this century, on May 8, 2003, that we had our first glimpse of what that would look like when the Mars Global Surveyor snapped a photo of Earth with our Moon from its orbit around the red planet. It was the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that actually shows it as a planetary disk.
As humbling as it may be to see our little home as slightly more than a speck in space, it’s spectacular to see its beauty even from 88 million miles away. This photo was taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on October 3, 2007, less than a year ago. It’s a blue pearl, along with its companion the Moon, both seen nearly half illuminated by the Sun (a near half phase). Because Mars is further away from the Sun, Earth and the Moon exhibit phases much like the Moon, Venus and Mars exhibit phases to observers on Earth. Mars, on the other hand, is always fully illuminated as seen from Earth.
In this photo, the the west coast outline of South America is on the lower right. Some cloud cover is also visible. The Moon appears in the upper right corner of the picture. (NASA photo)
