From the red planet, the Earth and the Moon are barely visible. Future astronauts who will explore Mars will only see a ridiculous dot instead of the Moon in their binoculars.
We never tire of observing the Moon in the sky. The reassuring presence of the brightest star in the night sky will no doubt be missed by early human explorers of Mars. Astronauts should nevertheless see the Earth and the Moon from the red planet. However, the show may not be very impressive.
This is shown by images presented by the European Space Agency (ESA) on July 12, 2023. The images were obtained by a probe in Mars orbit, Mars Express, and give an idea of ” what you would see through binoculars as a human traveler to Mars », summarizes the ESA on Twitter. The photos were taken over several days, May 15, 21 and 27, as well as June 2, 2023 — which is half a monthly orbit of the Moon around Earth. During this period, the distance between Earth and Mars varied from 279,186,624 km to 301,016,265 km.
The Earth, like an ant 100 m away
” In these simple Mars Express shots, Earth is the size of an ant seen from 100 meters away, and we’re all inside. Even though we’ve seen images like these before, it’s still humble to pause and think we need to take care of the pale blue dot, there is no planet B says Jorge Hernández Bernal of the University of the Basque Country. The scientist, quoted in the ESA press release, is part of the Mars Express team behind the image.
These shots can indeed recall one of the most famous images of our planet, ” A pale blue dot “, which had been taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 probe at 6 billion km from the Earth. Three decades later, similar to this historic snapshot, Mars Express’ vision of our planet and the Moon makes it seem like we’re really just a speck of dust in the Universe.
Humanity is still far from being able to claim to observe the Earth and the Moon from the surface of Mars. While waiting for this dream to materialize, the robots and probes that explore the planet help us to imagine what this inhabited future on Mars will look like. ” The next time you look at Mars in the night sky, think of Mars Express—or the next generation of Mars explorers—looking back at us! », concludes the ESA.
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