New view of Earth

The image on the left is a portion of the first photo from the perspective of another planet showing Earth as more than a point of light. The bright areas are clouds over the Americas, depicted on the globe at right. The picture comes from the Mars Global Surveyor probe now orbiting Mars. The craft was about 139 million kilometers away from Earth when it snapped the black-and-white photo, which was colorized using data from an image captured in 1973 from a closer distance by the Mariner 10 probe on its way to Mercury. The full Mars Global Surveyor picture, taken May 8, includes Jupiter, three of its largest satellites, and our moon.

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