When NASA launched its
InSight Mars lander on May 5, it also sent along two small, identical satellites,
collectively called Mars Cube One. One of the backpack-size "CubeSat"
spacecraft recently took a photo 621,371 miles (1 million kilometers) from
home. Earth and the moon appear in the picture — but they look really small.
The image is meant to honor
the "Pale Blue Dot" image taken by a Voyager spacecraft in 1990. The
horizon seems to stretch toward infinity on Earth's surface, where most of us
will spend our entire lives. But photos from space don't lie about the real
stature of our home planet.
A photo of Earth and the moon taken by MarCO-B about 1 million kilometers from the planet.NASA/JPL-Caltech |
Earth is a puny,
insignificant speck that floats in an endless, black void, and a new NASA image
is further evidence of this moving — and perhaps depressing— fact of life. The
picture was taken from 621,371 miles (1 million kilometers) away by a tiny satellite
on its way to Mars.
When NASA's InSight lander
launched on May 5, it was accompanied by two identical backpack-size satellites
collectively called Mars Cube One, or MarCO. MarCO-A and MarCO-B are tiny,
modular spacecraft known as "CubeSats," and today they're officially
the smallest satellites ever sent past the moon.
During a series of tests on
May 9, MarCO-B — which engineers also call "Wall-E" — took its first
photo. Scientists used the image (below) to check the deployment of an antenna,
but two familiar objects appear in the distance: Earth and its moon.
It's easy to miss the celestial
partners in the picture. To help us out, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
released a labeled version that highlights Earth, the moon, and various parts
of MarCO-B.
"CubeSats have never
gone this far into space before, so it's a big milestone. Both our CubeSats are
healthy and functioning properly. We're looking forward to seeing them travel
even farther."
The MarCO satellites are
designed to test the benefits of launching CubeSats in deep space. If at least
one MarCO satellite safely reaches the red planet, it could help scientists on
Earth get better, quicker information about the InSight spacecraft's attempt to
descend toward and land on the Martian surface.
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