Earth Departure Movie
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Earth Departure Movie
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Earth Departure Movie
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The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft captured several stunning images of Earth during a gravity assist swingby of its home planet on Aug. 2, 2005. Several hundred images, taken with the wide-angle camera in MESSENGER's Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), were sequenced into a movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth.
Comprising 358 frames taken over 24 hours, the movie follows Earth through one complete rotation. The spacecraft was 40,761 miles (65,598 kilometers) above South America when the camera started rolling on Aug. 2. It was 270,847 miles (435,885 kilometers) away from Earth—farther than the Moon's orbit—when it snapped the last image on Aug. 3.
Background Info:
These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. For information regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER
image use policy
.
Cataloging Keywords:
| Name |
Value |
Additional Values |
| Target |
Earth |
Mercury |
| System |
|
|
| Target Type |
Planet |
|
| Mission |
MESSENGER |
|
| Instrument Host |
MESSENGER |
|
| Host Type |
Orbiter |
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| Instrument |
Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) |
|
| Detector |
|
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| Extra Keywords |
Color, Moon, Movie, Rotation |
| Acquisition Date |
|
| Release Date |
2005-08-02 |
| Date in Caption |
2005-08-02 |
|
| Image Credit |
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington |
| Source |
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10120 |
| Identifier |
PIA10120 |
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