This mosaic shows images of Earth and the moon acquired by the
multispectral imager on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
Spacecraft (NEAR) on January 23, 1998, 19 hours after the
spacecraft swung by Earth on its way to the asteroid 433 Eros.
The images of both were taken from a range of 250,000 miles
(400,000 kilometers), approximately the same as the distance
between the two bodies. This unique perspective, never seen
before, shows both our planet and its moon at the relative size that
each appears when viewed from the other. Also, both Earth and
the Moon are viewed from above their south poles, a perspective
not attainable from either body because the moon orbits high
above Earth's equator. In the Earth image, the south pole is at the
center and the continent of Antartica is surrounded by sea ice and
storm fronts.
The image mosaic is constructed from blue, green, and infrared filters. These colors highlight differences between rock types, water, and vegetation. On Earth, the red area at the upper right side is desert and vegetation in Australia. Snow, ice, and clouds appear as subtly different shades of white and light blue. The moon's blandness, compared to Earth, arises from its lack of an atmosphere, oceans, and vegetation. For viewing purposes, the moon is shown five times brighter than in reality, and ten times closer to Earth than it actually is.
Same image in larger JPEG format, 50K
Same image in TIFF,
(Tag Image File Format) 2.7M