Crazy how Jupiter looks closer in perspective but is actually in the rear of the shot. That shows just how really big that thing is. Amazing!

You can actually see 3 of Jupiter's satellites in the shot as well.

Thanks for pointing that out. I actually thought it was dust on my screen.

And that other dust mote by the earth is the moon.

Psh...I dont see what's all the fuss from NASA then!
This pic shows that Jupiter is only a short distance from the earth. ;-)

That is a slick pic though.

How do they make the flash so bright? And reach the camera back from the two planets at the same time?

This sciencing is amazing.

mmmm now i'm wondering at wich speed this shot was made .... prob hundreds of km an hour , and yet not blurred hiihih

mmmm now i'm wondering at wich speed this shot was made .... prob hundreds of km an hour , and yet not blurred hiihih

Why are there no stars in this picture? It seems like there should be stars. AWESOME picture though.

Which 3 moons are those, Callisto, Ganymede, and Io?

If this doesn't make you feel insignificant I don't know what will...

no, the stars are too faint to see with this camera focusing only in a distance.
And you don't need speed, light is coming form the planets continuously to the lens of the camera .

You can't see stars while in space. Stars are only visible to us because of the light refracting through the atmosphere.

Granted Mars has a atmosphere, but not one thick enough to refract the light from stars.

You can see stars in space.

@cunundrum43: Stars are indeed visible from above Earth's atmosphere -- if not, the Hubble Space Telescope wouldn't work. The "atmospheric refraction" is responsible for the *twinkling* we're accustomed to. (Stars appear as point sources but planets show visible discs, which is why the latter *don't* twinkle.)

Note that a spaceborne human won't see *more* stars (i.e., dimmer ones) than from Earth's surface. I once spoke to a Soviet cosmonaut, and apparently spacecraft windows block just as much light as Earth's atmosphere.

@Lexomatic...thanks, I always knew there was a reason behind the story that stars twinkle and planets dont, but I never could get the correct reason.

No one would believe me when I told them that's how you tell the diff.

Here's a link to the full-size picture.

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/2558/earthjupiter100.jpg

I want a "to-scale" pic!

@cunundrum43: You're welcome. Every individual point in the planet's disc is jittering, but in different ways, so on average the disc remains constant. With stars, the jitter subtends a greater angle than the star itself. See: (http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=114)

@harrisonf: How are Earth and Jupiter the same size in one image? Optically, a long focal length and small aperture will maximize depth of field (i.e., which parts of the scene are in focus), but will "flatten" perspective (i.e., cause near and far objects to appear the same size). Consider baseball games on TV, and how the pitcher looks to be about ten feet from the batter.

Just an inference -- That's how it works with terrestrial photography, but the design of spaceborne sensors can be extremely complicated, and they're generally optimized for purposes other than "as a human would see it."

That's no Moon. That's a space station!

You don't see stars in the picture because the camera was set to catch details on the Earth and Jupiter - which are *much* brighter. The stars are simply to faint to show up. You could take a picture that caught the stars, but then the planets would be horribly overexposed.

Space is amazing. I can't wait til we explore Titans. I'm sure it's a lot more interesting than Mars.

Awesome picture.. I just can't grasp the numbers when they get so large.

Hmm, did you notice that moon looks *much* more like Africa and Europe than Americas.

Even if you like your home country, it do not mean that everything you see is that.

very stunning

That glaring white spot where "south america" is should be a lush green of the Amazon, not the jarring tan of the sahara desert. North of that is the white, snowy artic circle. I don't belive that to be the Western hemisphere at all.

This is a great image, in any case. I love our gas giant.

moontage

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/jupiter_a200.jpg

All you need is a mirror to get a stunning view of Uranus.

looks more like clouds to me. if you look at the far left edge of earth where it turns to night (i forget what the name of that line is) i can see green there near the top. a lot of the planet is covered by clouds quite often so i don't believe that we are seeing north and south america. if anything, i agree with gaby, it would have to be Africa

The reason there is no blur is because of the extreme distances involved.
The amount of time needed to take the shot is not long enough to perceive any noticeable movement of the objects (Planets, moons) being photographed.

One things that confuses me is that the photo of Earth (in the largest picture on this page) suggests that the sun is on the right hand side, whereas Jupiter's photo suggests that the sun is behind the camera, quite weird. Can't explain this! Otherwise...breathtaking!

what huh u are dumd dude that is america and u know what nvm u guy's are truely a lil slow only a few of u knew what u were talking about lmao u know who u are the rest of u are tards

@tux: Have a look at the diagram. The photo's are taken from Mars. From that perspective the Sun light reflects off the right side of Earth, but as Jupiter is so far away the Sun's light will almost show a full disc. The photo's can be misleading as you are only seeing the objects without knowing their true size and 3D position.

A couple of comments. The original "press release" about this photo was on May 22, 2003, but the photo was actually taken at about 9 AM EDT on May 8, 2003. Also, you can use a program like Celestia to replicate the view from Mars at that time, and it is practically dead on accurate compared to the photo shown here. And in Celestia, it's quite clear that the white spot at center right of Earth in the photo is in fact centered over the Colombia/Venezuela/NW Brazil area of South America (almost certainly dense cloud cover), just as is claimed here.