Stunning Image Of 'Earth And Moon’: Captured From Mars By NASA MRO

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A NASA's spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured an image of Earth and the Moon together in November 2016, from 127 million miles away.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has used its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera to capture the image on Nov. 20, 2016. The images are taken to calibrate HiRISE data, where the reflectance of the moon's Earth-facing side is well known. At that time, Mars and Earth were about 127 million miles apart, NASA officials said.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado. The color profiles of the HiRISE means; it takes photographs in the form of infared, red and blue-green. Therefore, the new photo is actually a composite of two separate exposures taken to calibrate HiRISE, which is so powerful that can able to resolve features as small as 3.3 feet (1 meter) across on the Martian surface from MRO's.

The distance between Earth and the moon is, 30 times the diameter of Earth. Originally, Earth and the moon appear so closer rather than in the image. In the image, the reddish feature in the middle of the Earth is Australia. When the component images were taken, Mars and Earth were about 127 million miles (205 million kilometers) apart.

The $720 millions of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission has been launched in August 2005 and got into the Red Planet in March 2006. MRO occupies a circular orbit that keeps the probe within 155 miles to 196 miles (250 to 316 km) of the Martian surface, according to Space.

Since 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been investigating Mars, with HiRISE and five other instruments. In the coming months, Cassini will continue to orbit Saturn's rings and the HiRISE will keep going on its route around Mars. Also, NASA captured top 16 images of Earth in 2016.