2024-08-03 21:52:47
However, during its journey the probe took the opportunity to take a look at its origin, managing to capture an image of the Earth and the Moon from orbit around Mercury.
The photo was taken on May 6, 2010when the probe was 183 million kilometers from Earth, a greater distance than it normally is from the Sun.
From the probe’s perspective, The Earth and the Moon were located near the border of the constellations Libra and Scorpio.
The Messenger spacecraft’s science team viewed the image as a happy coincidence, as the spacecraft was searching for vulcanoids, small rocky objects that exist in orbits between Mercury and the Sun.
Before the Messenger probe, Mercury had already been visited by the Mariner 10 mission between 1974 and 1975..
However, this This is not the first time that an image of the Earth has been obtained from long distances..
In 2003, the Mars Global Surveyor captured an image of Earth and its Moon in the same frame, while the Spirit Rover on Mars took the first photo of our planet from the surface of another planet.
In 2006, Cassini probe sent back snapshots from 1.5 billion kilometers away as it orbited SaturnAnd in 1990, operators of the venerable Voyager 1 managed to piece together a family portrait of the entire solar system, spotting Earth from a distance of more than 4 billion miles.