NASA releases incredible picture of Earth snapped by a spaceship orbiting MARS
Astonishing images show humanity's home world as you've never seen it before
NASA has published photography of Planet Earth snapped by a spaceship in orbit around Mars.
The grainy images were taken by a super-powerful camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently on a mission to find water on the Red Planet.
Two shots taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera were combined to give a breathtaking view of our planet juxtaposed against the inky infinity of space.
The images were actually taken to calibrate HiRISE, but ended up capturing dramatic view of Earth and the moon from about 127 million miles away.
The "reddish feature near the middle of the face of Earth" is Australia, NASA explained.
"The images were taken to calibrate HiRISE data, since the reflectance of the moon's Earth-facing side is well known," it wrote.
"For presentation, the exposures were processed separately to optimise detail visible on both Earth and the moon.
"The moon is much darker than Earth and would barely be visible if shown at the same brightness scale as Earth."
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Last year, NASA released pictures taken from one million miles away from Earth, which showed our planet in all its glory.
"The central turquoise areas are shallow seas around the Caribbean islands.
"This Earth image shows the effects of sunlight scattered by air molecules, giving the image a characteristic bluish tint."
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