Earth viewed from Mars orbit

[Phobos]

very cool

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/05/22/earth.mars.ap/index.html

[RuroumiKenshin]

Why does Earth look blurry?

[John MacNeil]

Here's a larger picture,

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/images/20030522a-02_hr.jpg

which is off this site,

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20030522a.html

[dav2008]

Originally posted by MajinVegeta
Why does Earth look blurry? Crappy cameras? Read what john posted

[Phobos]

I'm thinking that its actually a great camera being used for something that is outside of its design range.

The photos were taken from the Mars Global Surveyor...which is in orbit around Mars...and is there for the purpose of looking at Mars. In other words, the camera is designed to survey things that are a few hundred miles away and, due to a "fortuitous alignment", was used this one time to grab a snapshot of the Earth which is millions of miles away. It does not have the resolution capability to bring the Earth into greater focus although it can take high-res photos of the Martian surface.

But hey, it's a better view of Earth than you can get of Mars with any cheap telescope. (does that sentence make any sense? [g)] )

Anyway, they had the opportunity to take this shot out of curiousity. As far as I know, the previous shot of Earth from Mars just looked like a small dot...so this is a big improvement. [:)]

No new discoveries here...just an interesting picture (Earth from a new perspective).

[kleinma]

Phobos.. you thinkin of this shot maybe??

http://www.space.com/images/blue_dot_010925_03.jpg


it was actually taken by Voyager 1 in 1991..

while the shot of the earth from mars was a small distance of 86 million miles away.. this snap shot was actually 4 BILLION MILES away from earth..

the colored beam is that runs across the earth in the shot is sunlight relecting in the camera...

its a pretty cool shot.. even if it is only a tiny dot [:D]

[Phobos]

Originally posted by kleinma
Phobos.. you thinkin of this shot maybe??


that's the one!

Sagan said he had to do some heavy lobbying to get the mission folks to agree to take that one (they feared that the camera may be damaged when pointed toward the sun like that, plus they knew it would only show a dot at best and that it would have no real scientific value).

Anyway, I'm glad we have it for philosophical purposes.