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You’ve never seen the Earth and the Moon like this before.
The Mars Express spacecraft recently celebrated 20 years in space by taking a nostalgic look back at the Earth and Moon from the Red Planet. The images captured by the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft show our planet and its natural satellite as little more than a large white dot crossed by a smaller white dot.
And while this may not be the most spectacular image from space ever seen, the Mars Express photo shows the distance between Earth and the Red Planet and what a feat it is to place vehicles on and around our neighboring planet.
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The images elicit comparisons to the famous image of Earth taken in February 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft, in which our planet also appeared as little more than a speck, dubbed the “Pale Blue Dot.” The image prompted astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan to reflect on Earth’s fragility and humanity’s responsibility to care for the only planet we know of as having life. And even though three decades have passed since Sagan elucidated that message, it never seemed more important.
“On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Mars Express since launch, we wanted to bring Carl Sagan’s reflections back to the present, in which the deteriorating climate and ecological crisis make them more valid than ever,” says part of the team. behind the image and University of the Basque Country researcher Jorge Hernández Bernal said in a statement.
“In these simple snaps from Mars Express, the Earth is the size of an ant seen from 100 meters away, and we’re all in it. Even though we’ve seen images like this before, it’s still humbling to pause for a moment. stand and think. : We have to take care of the light blue dot, there is no planet B.”
The Mars Express spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur launch complex in Kazakhstan on June 2, 2003. miles (8 million kilometers) from home.
The Mars Express spacecraft entered orbit around Mars in December of the same year, entering its highly elliptical orbit on Christmas Day 2003. Mars orbiter has been the Christmas gift that continues to give to planetary scientists ever since.
These particular images were captured using the super-resolution channel (SRC) of Mars Express’ High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The main role of this instrument was to observe the two moons of Mars and the background stars around the Red Planet.
The images of the Earth and the Moon were taken on May 15, May 21 and June 2, 2023, so they cover more than half of the Moon’s 29.5-day orbit around our planet. The final image was taken just before a special event where the Mars Express beamed images captured by its Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) for a unique “live from Mars” anniversary broadcast.
“There is no scientific value in these images, but since the conditions allowed us to point the HRSC to Earth and soon after the VMC to Mars, we took the opportunity to create our own portrait of home on this incredible mission milestone for Mars Express,” said Daniela Tirsch, a member of the Mars Express team at the German Aerospace Center.
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The Mars Express may not have been on Earth for 20 years, but the ESA spacecraft still has a lot of work to do before it retires. The mission has received several extensions, the last of which was approved in March this year and the Mars Express will continue to operate at least until December 31, 2026.
“ESA has a long history of exploration of Mars, first from orbit with Mars Express and the Trace Gas Orbiter, and in the next decade on the surface with the rover Rosalind Franklin and the completion of the Mars Sample Return missions The next bold ambition is, of course, to explore with humans,” said ESA project scientist for Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, Colin Wilson. “It may only be another 20 years before humans can look up from the surface of Mars to see Earth in the night sky.”
