On 18 November 2020, ESA and NASA’s Solar Orbiter took the images of Venus, Earth and Mars used in this GIF.
ESA / NASA / NRL / Solar Orbiter / SolOHI
Here on earth we use to search for and locate other planets in our solar system, but this is noticeable when we look back at mechanical missionaries and see ourselves between the stars.
Solar Orbiter was launched in early 2020 on a mission to study the sun, but he did a little sightseeing in his spare time. The European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft captured a beautiful scene late last year when Venus, Earth and Mars were seen against a background of stars.
The Venus, Earth, and Mars trifecta occurred in November when the Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) camera from orbit spotted the planets as the spacecraft was en route to a Venus airport.
ESA has just released the scene as a short video. Venus is the brightest planet to the left of the image. The earth is in the middle and Mars is fainter and lower right in the corner.
“Stars are visible in the background and appear to be moving in the recording of Solar Orbiter as the spacecraft moves around the sun,” ESA said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Solar Orbiter portrait of the earth and friends fits nicely into a history of views from elsewhere in the solar system. For comparison, you can see what the earth looks like from Mars and what it looked like NASA’s Voyager 1 back in 1990. It helps to put our place in the universe into perspective.
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