This photo from NASA's Curiosity rover shows Earth as seen from the surface of Mars, shining brighter than any star in the Martian night sky. The Earth is a bright point of light just to the left of the center of the image, and our Moon is visible just below the Earth. Curiosity, which landed on the Red Planet on August 6, 2013, is the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to Mars. He studies the geology of his environment and found evidence of a past environment well suited for microbial life.
Scientists used Curiosity's left eye camera (Mastcam) to capture this scene about 80 minutes after sunset on the 529th Martian day, or solar day, of the rover's mission on Mars (March 31 January 201 ). The image has been processed to remove the effects of cosmic rays. A human observer with normal vision standing on Mars would easily see the Earth and the Moon as two separate bright evening stars. Earth was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers) from Mars when Curiosity took the image. This image completes our collection of photographs of planet Earth from afar, providing a unique view of our place in space.
Several other deep space probes have imaged the Earth even more. NASA's Cassini spacecraft has photographed Earth and the moon Saturn more than once, most recently in July 2013. In 2010, NASA's Messenger spacecraft orbiting Mercury imaged Earth and other planets as part of a portrait of the Solar System. The planet is the closest planet to the sun. The most famous photograph of Earth from space is perhaps the so-called "Pale Blue Dot" view taken by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. NASA released the image in February. 1 , 1990.
Image Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M University. Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.