Earth  ID: 11232

Departure

Story by Kayvon Sharghi Released on April 11, 2013
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A NASA spacecraft beams back farewell images of our planet.
On August 3, 2004, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft launched into space, beginning an epic 4.9 billion-mile journey through the inner solar system on a mission to orbit Mercury. To conserve fuel, the spacecraft executed a gravity-assist flyby of Earth on August 2, 2005, that altered its trajectory and pointed it toward the sun. During the maneuver, several hundred images of Earth were taken using two onboard cameras. Assembled into a sequence, the images offer fascinating views of our home planet at varying scale. The sequence begins with an image of Earth from a distance of 40,761 miles. Over 24 hours, the size of Earth's sphere decreases as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, taking parting shots from beyond the moon's orbit, more than 270,000 miles away. Watch the video to see it for yourself.
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Watch this video to see departing views of Earth taken by MESSENGER.
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Scientists imaged Earth during the flyby to test and calibrate instruments aboard the spacecraft.
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MESSENGER was more than 100,000 miles from Earth when it captured this image.
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This image of Earth and the moon (left of center) was taken by MESSENGER from a distance of 114 million miles.

Story Credits

Lead Writer:
Kayvon Sharghi (USRA)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Video and images courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11232

Keywords:
SVS >> App
NASA Science >> Earth