A comet-chasing spacecraft swinging by Earth this week has snapped magnificent new images of our home planet.
The new photos come from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, which will make its closest approach by Earth Friday at 2:45 a.m. EST (0745 GMT), during its third and final flyby past the planet.
The Rosetta spacecraft’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera captured three images of Earth with an orange, green and blue filter, and from a distance of about 393,330 miles (633,000 km). The resulting illuminated crescent is a combination of the trio.
The combined image shows the Earth as blue sliver, with the South Pole roughly in the center. The outline of Antarctica is visible beneath the clouds that form the south-polar vortex, a natural continent-wide tornado of sorts. Pack ice in front of the coastline, due to its strong reflectivity, causes bright spots in the image.
SOURCE: Space.com
Posted on November 12th, 2009 at 9:21 pm by Lin McNulty
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