For Earth Day, a View of Home

During its Earth Gravity Assist maneuver last September, OSIRIS-REx used its MapCam imager to capture this color composite portrait of the spacecraft’s home planet, centered on the Pacific Ocean. The dark vertical streaks at the top of the image are caused by short exposure times (less than three milliseconds), which were used to image Earth because the planet is much brighter than the dark asteroid the cameras were designed to image.

The spacecraft also captured spectral data, and images of the Moon and the Earth-Moon system during its flyby.

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Downloads:

For Earth Day, a View of Home

Downloads:

Subscribe for all mission updates.