China's Mars Mission Took This Picture of the Earth and Moon

By Nancy Atkinson July 31, 2020
China's Mars Mission Took This Picture of the Earth and Moon

No matter where you are, where you’ve been and where you’re going, it’s always good to see home.  And we all love seeing pictures of our home planet, as seen from space.

The latest image of the Terran System comes from China's Mars mission, Tianwen-1, which launched on July 23. It captured an image of the Earth and Moon, seen from about 1.2 million km from Earth, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

It joins a great group of photos taken of our “pale blue dot” from missions like Voyager, Cassini, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and of course, the Apollo missions to the Moon. You can see a gallery of Earth-Moon images as seen from other worlds here.

Image taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, showing Earth and the Moon. Credit: NASA/JPL

Tianwen-1 used its optical navigation sensor to take this black-and-white photo, showing both the Earth and the Moon as crescent-shaped, “watching each other in the vast universe,” said Xinhua News, China’s News Agency.

This is CNSA’s first mission to Mars, and it joins two other Mars missions launched this month, as Earth and Mars are aligned favorably for the fastest and cheapest (in terms of fuel expenditures) trip between the two planets. The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) first-ever interplanetary effort, the Hope Mars mission, also known as the Emirates Mars Mission, launched on July 19, and NASA launched the Perseverance rover yesterday (July 30.)

China’s ambitious mission consists of a lander, rover and an orbiter. Tianwen- means “Heavenly Questions”, or “Questions to Heaven.” The mission is slated to study the Red Planet's morphology and geological structure, soil characteristics and distribution of surface water ice, surface material composition, atmospheric ionosphere and surface climate and environment, as well as physical field and internal structure of Mars, said Liu Tongjie, spokesperson of China's first Mars mission and deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center.

The latest update on the mission said the spacecraft was in good condition.  

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com