You Are Here: Earth Shines in Image from Kepler Spacecraft

Last December, the planet-hunting mission viewed our planet from 94 million miles away

Even from nearly 100 million miles away, Earth was so bright in Kepler’s view that it saturated the spacecraft’s sensors, obscuring the neighboring Moon with a vertical swath of light.

NASA

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

This is what Earth looks like through a planet hunter's eyes.

Our home planet blazes like a cosmic lighthouse in a photo taken by NASA's Kepler space telescope, which has discovered more than 2,500 alien worlds to date.

"Captured on Dec. 10, 2017, after the spacecraft adjusted its telescope to a new field of view, Earth's reflection as it slipped past was so extraordinarily bright that it created a saber-like saturation bleed across the instrument's sensors, obscuring the neighboring moon," NASA officials wrote in a description of the photo, which was released Wednesday (March 7)—the ninth anniversary of Kepler's launch. [10 Amazing Photos of Earth from Space]

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Earth appears so bright because Kepler's light-sensing photometer is exquisitely sensitive. The instrument was designed to detect the tiny brightness dips caused when exoplanets cross their host stars' faces from Kepler's perspective.

The spacecraft first did this work while staring at about 150,000 stars simultaneously. But this initial mission came to an end in May 2013, when the second of Kepler's four orientation-maintaining reaction wheels failed, robbing the telescope of its precision pointing ability.

Mission managers soon figured out a way to stabilize Kepler using sunlight pressure, however, and Kepler embarked on a new mission called K2. During K2, Kepler continues hunting for planets on a more limited basis, and it's also observing a variety of other celestial objects and phenomena.

Kepler orbits the sun, a bit behind Earth. At the time the newly released photo was taken, the spacecraft was about 94 million miles (151 million kilometers) from our planet, NASA officials said.

A new planet hunter will soon join Kepler in the final frontier. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is scheduled to launch on April 16, on a mission to hunt for alien worlds circling stars in the sun's neighborhood. As its name suggest, TESS will use the "transit" technique—the same planet-hunting method Kepler employs.

Some of the planets found by TESS will likely be studied in detail by NASA's $8.9 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which is due to lift off in 2019.

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

It’s Time to Stand Up for Science

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.

I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.

If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.

In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.

There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.

Thank you,

David M. Ewalt, Editor in Chief, Scientific American