B Earth from Space: What Would Hubble See?

[zuz]

Assume the Hubble Space Telescope was in orbit around Pluto. What would it see when pointed toward Earth? I know the scene would change due to rotation and seasonal changes, but would our planet be blue? White? Green?

 

[jfizzix]

The color profile of the Earth would look like what it does from all the other photos we've taken of it from space, so, blues, greens, browns, and whites. The amount of detail you would be able to see is another issue altogether.

To get an idea of what the Earth would look like if the Hubble Telescope were out near Pluto, our resolution would be comparable to the Hubble photos we have of Pluto from Earth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pluto_hubble_photomap.jpg
The Earth has a diameter a little more than 5 times more than Pluto, so those lumps would be about 5x smaller. You might be able to make out Australia, but probably not Tasmania.

As another example, the View of Earth from a little further away than Pluto is the famous pale blue dot photo from Voyager 1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

On the topic of how much detail you could see of the surface of the Earth if the Hubble was aimed at it from where it currently is, you may find this what-if-xkcd interesting:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/

 

[Janus]

It might roughly look like this:

At that distance, with the resolution of the Hubble, it would be about 9 pixels across. In this image, the green-brown area is North America.