{"id":63884,"date":"2024-09-20T08:15:55","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T08:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3d245de5-6ec9-49d9-a167-270044665bb1"},"modified":"2024-09-20T08:39:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T08:39:45","slug":"see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"See that blue dot? That’s us. Planet Earth and Martian moon Phobos photographed by a rover on the Red Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Iain Todd\n <\/p>

Published: Friday, 20 September 2024 at 08:15 AM<\/p>

\n\n

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has captured an amazing image showing one of Mars’s moons, Phobos, in the Martian sky, with Earth visible in the same view.<\/p>

Curiosity rover<\/a> captured the image of Phobos and Earth using its Mastcam camera on 5 September 2024, the 4,295th Martian day \u2013 or ‘sol’ \u2013 of its mission on the Red Planet.<\/p>

The larger body in the image is Phobos, one of Mars’s two moons<\/a>, while the smaller body to its right is Earth.<\/p>

A view of Mars moon Phobos (left) and Earth (right captured from the surface of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover. Click to expand. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/figcaption><\/figure>

In the image, Earth is setting below the horizon, while Phobos is rising.<\/p>

The image was produced by stitching together 5 short exposures and 12 long exposures.<\/p>

It shows the Martian sky over Texoli, a butte on lower Mount Sharp, a mountain 5km (3 miles) tall that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014.<\/p>

NASA says that, from the rover’s perspective, the inset area would be about half the width of a thumb held at arm’s length.<\/p>

\"Full
Full image of Mars moon Phobos (left) and Earth (right captured from the surface of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover. Click to expand. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Images of Earth from Mars<\/strong><\/h2>

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.”<\/p>

When Carl Sagan spoke those now famous words in reference to the Voyager 1 image of Earth captured from a distance of 6.4 billion kilometres (4 billion miles) away, it was a plea to humanity to put aside its differences and work together for the common good.<\/p>

From our perspective on the ground, Earth is almost indescribably big, yet within the context of the Universe, it is indescribably small.<\/p>

Even from the view of a lone rover on our planetary neighbour Mars, Earth looks tiny.<\/p>

Yet this latest view of Phobos and Earth captured by Curiosity isn’t the first image of Earth captured from Mars.<\/p>

\"A
A view of Earth from Mars, appearing like the brightest star in the Martian sky. This image was captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover on 31 January 2024. Click to expand. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech\/Malin Space Science Systems\/Texas A&M University. Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Curiosity captured an image of Earth in Mars’s sky back in 2014, which you can see above.<\/p>

And even further back, the Mars Global Surveyor captured an image of Earth and our Moon from its orbit around Mars, visible below.<\/p>

In the Mars Global Surveyor image, Earth is seen to exhibit a phase, just as Venus and Mercury (and, indeed, our Moon) do when viewed from Earth.<\/p>

\"A
A view of Earth and our Moon captured from Mars orbit by the Mars Global Surveyor on 8 May 2003 at 13:00 UTC. Click to expand. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Malin Space Science Systems<\/figcaption><\/figure>

From Earth, Venus and Mercury exhibit phases because they are inner – or ‘inferior’ – planets. And from Mars’s perspective, Earth too is an inner planet.<\/p>

Future stargazers on on the Red Planet<\/a> may be able to photograph and record Earth’s phases, and even observe transits of Earth across the Sun from Mars<\/a>.<\/p>

But for now, these images of Earth as a tiny dot as seen from Mars are a reminder of our planet’s fragility and relative insignificance within the wider Universe.<\/p>

\"Artist's
Artist’s illustration showing what it would look to see a transit of Earth from Mars. Click to expand. Credit: NASA\/JPL<\/figcaption><\/figure>

What are your favourite images of Mars? Let us know by emailing contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Iain Todd Published: Friday, 20 September 2024 at 08:15 AM NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has captured an amazing image showing one of Mars’s moons, Phobos, in the Martian sky, with Earth visible in the same view. Curiosity rover captured the image of Phobos and Earth using its Mastcam camera on 5 September 2024, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":63885,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet.jpg",1200,1011,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet-300x253.jpg",300,253,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet-768x647.jpg",768,647,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet-1024x863.jpg",800,674,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet.jpg",1200,1011,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/see-that-blue-dot-thats-us-planet-earth-and-martian-moon-phobos-photographed-by-a-rover-on-the-red-planet.jpg",1200,1011,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Iain Todd Published: Friday, 20 September 2024 at 08:15 AM NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has captured an amazing image showing one of Mars’s moons, Phobos, in the Martian sky, with Earth visible in the same view. Curiosity rover captured the image of Phobos and Earth using its Mastcam camera on 5 September 2024, the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/63884"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}