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Jupiter-Bound Spacecraft Sees Earth and Moon from Afar

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Earth [left] and the moon [right] may look like distant specks in this photograph from the Juno spacecraft, but Juno had only just begun its long trek from Earth to Jupiter when it was taken.

A camera on the NASA probe snapped this shot August 26, just three weeks into Juno's five-year cruise to the solar system's largest planet. Juno was nearly 10 million kilometers from Earth at the time. (For a sense of scale, the Earth–moon distance is about 380,000 kilometers.) Once it arrives at its destination, Juno is designed to orbit Jupiter for a year, investigating the planet's inner structure and gathering more clues to how such giant worlds form.

Juno is not the first spacecraft to catch a glimpse of its home planet and the moon from afar. Decades of space exploration have produced several dramatic views of Earth from throughout the solar system.

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  1. 1. GreenMind 03:39 PM 9/2/11

    Has anyone looked at the amount that the Earth's luminosity varies over time when seen from great distances? The amount of cloud cover varies geographically, and as the Earth rotates, it seems like the amount of sunlight it reflects may vary from hour to hour. Blue ocean is much darker than cloud cover, but it also may pick up specular reflections from the sun, and that might shine brilliantly sometimes.

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