The Earth and Moon – from Mars

Posted on October 15, 2009 | 6 Comments

The High Imaging Science Experiment orbiting Mars is producing some great images of the Martian surface (have a browse through the images at the website). But it’s also being used to image the other planets.

Here’s a shot of the Earth and Moon – taken from Mars!

(Source The Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars (PSP_005558_9040)).

earth and moon

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6 responses to “The Earth and Moon – from Mars”

  1. Ubiquitous Che | October 15, 2009 at 1:26 pm |

    Love the photo!

    Could someone with more knowledge help me out?

    Hold in your head two lines – one from the Earth to the moon, and the other from the moon to Mars.

    I get the feeling that the angle between those two lines is almost 180°, because it seems that the moon is way to big relative to the size of the earth in this photo, and the distance between is way too small. I would have expected the moon to be half as big, and the distance to be two or three times bigger.

    Then again, I’m hardly an expert. Any thoughts?

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  2. Heraclides | October 15, 2009 at 2:13 pm |

    The moon might be closer to Mars than the Earth in the photo—?

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  3. Ubiquitous Che | October 15, 2009 at 2:28 pm |

    Sorry – yes, I should have asked that.

    Is the moon closer to Mars than the Earth?

    In particular, close enough that the Earth-moon-Mars angle is closer to 180° than it is to 90°?

    Technical question, I’m just curious.

    Otherwise, it’s still a cool photo. ^_^

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  4. Ken | October 15, 2009 at 3:40 pm |

    The source says that the image has been significantly processed:

    “This color image required a fair amount of processing to make a nice-looking release.

    The Moon image is unsaturated but brightened relative to Earth for this composite. The lunar images are useful for calibration of the camera.”

    So, I wouldn’t be surprised if a bit of space between the earth and the moon was cut out. Easy to do.

    But, it could also be that the moon was closer to mars because the photo was taken at the most appropriate part of its orbit. As you say – an angle closer to 180 than 90.

    The sort of thing wedding photographers would do, I guess!

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