NASA’s ESCAPADE Snaps Family Portrait of Earth, Moon

Core point

On July 3, one of NASA’s two Mars-destined ESCAPADE spacecraft captured photos of Earth and the Moon in visible and thermal infrared light. At the time, the spacecraft was 363,250 miles from Earth and 115,600 miles from the Moon, making the Moon appear relatively large. The visible light image shows Earth and the Moon as crescents, with only around 8% of each face sunlit. In the thermal infrared image, Earth’s shadowed hemisphere glows at minus 10 to minus 44 degrees Fahrenheit due to its own heat from the atmosphere and surface.