Curiosity one-upped the Spirit rover by capturing a view of each Earth and the Moon, which it did on January 31, 2014. The picture, captured by the NASA rover’s Mastcam, was taken round 80 minutes after sundown, at which level Earth was the brightest object within the sky. The Purple Planet was 99 million miles (160 million kilometers) from Earth when the picture was taken.
By zooming in and including some background darkness (see annotated picture above), the Moon is also seen. “A human observer with regular imaginative and prescient, if standing on Mars, might simply see Earth and the moon as two distinct, brilliant night stars,” according to NASA.
Trending Merchandise
