Farewell Earth – 20 years ago

Twenty years ago, on the night of 3 July 2003, ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft was pointed backwards to obtain this breathtaking view of the Earth-Moon system from a distance of eight million km while on its way to Mars.

This image was the first picture of a planetary object taken by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). Although the spatial resolution was low at this great distance, the picture gave a good indication of what to expect from Mars Express in its orbit around Mars.

Today, after more than 24 000 orbits around the Red Planet the camera is still in good health and mapping Mars in colour and in stereo!

Read the original 2003 press release about this image here.