Seen from Mars, Earth and the moon are two bright ‘evening stars’

NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars has captured its first view of Earth from the surface of the Red Planet — a striking image that shows our home planet as a bright light in the Martian sky, with the moon shining nearby.

The Mars rover Curiosity snapped the photos of Earth from Mars during its 529th day on the Martian surface. / NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / TAMU
The Mars rover Curiosity snapped the photos of Earth from Mars during its 529th day on the Martian surface. / NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / TAMU

The rover apparently watched the Martian sunset, then photographed Earth in the night sky about 80 minutes later, NASA officials said in an image description.

“A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct, bright ‘evening stars,'” NASA officials said in the image description. …

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took this photo of Earth from the surface of Mars on Jan. 31, 2014, 40 minutes after local sunset, using the left-eye camera on its mast. The inset shows a zoomed-in view of the Earth and moon in the image.

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