November 27, 2009 | 10 comments

10 Views of Earth from the Moon, Mars and Beyond [Slide Show]

For more than 40 years, missions throughout the solar system have sent back stunning images of our home planet

By John Matson

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CLICK TO ENLARGE + NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

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The Cassini spacecraft, currently exploring the Saturnian system, caught a glimpse of Earth in 2006 at a distance of about 1.5 billion kilometers. The planet is visible as a bright dot above and to the left of Saturn's main rings. (In the detail above left, Earth's moon is just visible as a hazy mass to the planet's left.) Ordinarily the sun's glare would be too bright for Cassini to look back at its home world, but the spacecraft took advantage of a position in which Saturn stood between the probe and the sun to sneak a peek at Earth.

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Slide Show: 10 Views of Earth from the Moon, Mars and Beyond

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