АчыкълауEarth and Moon seen from 183 million kilometers by MESSENGER (cropped).png
In this image, the Earth can be seen, as well as the much smaller Moon to Earth's right. When MESSENGER took this image, a distance of 183 million kilometers (114 million miles) separated the spacecraft and Earth. To provide context for this distance, the average separation between the Earth and the Sun is about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles).
The orientation of this image is that as seen by MESSENGER's Wide Angle Camera (WAC) when this image was captured. The direction of north is very nearly toward the bottom of the image, and Earth is located near the boundary of the constellations Libra and Scorpius. Specifically, the right ascension and declination coordinates for Earth in this image are 15:37:04 and -20:45:42, respectively.
Some of the bright features in this image are not stars but rather are due to cosmic ray particles striking the MESSENGER camera while the image was being taken. Images used to search for vulcanoids involve 10-second exposure times, which is a relatively long time in comparison to imaging planetary surfaces, like Mercury's. The longer exposure time makes it more likely that such a cosmic ray strike will occur.
На веб-сайте NASA размещено большое число изображений Советского/Российского космического агентства и других неамериканских космических агентств. Они вовсе не обязательно находятся в общественном достоянии.
Совместный проект SOHO (ESA & NASA) предполагает, что все материалы, созданные их зондом, защищены авторским правом и требуют разрешения для коммерческого необразовательного использования. [2]
{{Information |Description=In the lower left portion of this image, the Earth can be seen, as well as the much smaller Moon to Earth's right. When MESSENGER took this image, a distance of 183 million kilometers