From this Vantage Point, the Earth Looks Like a Star | Weather.com
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Space

The spacecraft is en route to study an asteroid that may hold clues about our solar system.

ByAda Carr
February 18, 2018Updated: February 18, 2018, 8:21 pm ESTPublished: February 18, 2018, 8:21 pm EST

The image above shows a view of the Earth and moon from 39.5 million miles away, captured by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Jan. 17, 2018.

(NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin)

A NASA spacecraft tracking a massive asteroid caught a photo of the Earth and moon from millions of miles away, making the giant planets look like tiny stars. 

OSIRIS-REx was 39.5 million miles away from our home planet and moon when it captured the image on Jan. 17, according to a release from NASA. The spacecraft was hurtling through space at 19,000 miles per hour. 

The brightest spot in the image’s center is Earth and the moon is the smaller orb to its right. Several constellations were also captured in the image. 

(MORE: Weather Satellite Is First on NASA Launch List

“The bright cluster of stars in the upper left corner is the Pleiades in the Taurus constellation,” states the release. “Hamal, the brightest star in Aries, is located in the upper right corner of the image. The Earth-Moon system is centered in the middle of five stars comprising the head of Cetus the Whale.”

The OSIRIS-REx is on a mission to collect information on Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid that may hold a record of our solar systems’ earliest history, according to the spacecraft’s website. 

“Bennu may contain the molecular precursors to the origin of life and the Earth’s oceans,” states the website. “Bennu is also one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids, as it has a relatively high probability of impacting the Earth late in the 22nd century.”

The image was captured with OSIRIS-REx’s grayscale imager, NavCam1. 

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