Rosetta snaps some nice pics (and a movie) on its last Earth flyby en route to asteroid Lutetia next year and a rendesvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ESA
Rosetta sees a living planet
13 November 2009
Closing in on home
Images and data taken just before closest approach were downloaded this morning, and they show the lights of North America in the night and a glowing Southern Hemisphere.
As Rosetta approached Earth, OSIRIS periodically imaged the Earth once every hour for 24 hours. The images from the green optical colour filter have been combined into a movie sequence. The images were taken beginning when Rosetta was 1.1 million km from Earth, until it came 320 000 km close.
<-- click for big
Illuminated crescent of Earth showing part of South America and Antarctica
The image above shows the illuminated crescent of Earth showing part of South America and Antarctica. This OSIRIS image was acquired with the the narrow-angle camera from a distance of 350 000 km at 22:28 UTC last night. The resolution is 6.5 km/pixel.
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