This is what the Earth and the Moon look like from five million kilometers away

September 20 () –

This photograph of Earth and the Moon was taken by the JANUS camera on board the mission ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice).

It was taken on September 9, 2024, when Juice was heading towards Venus after its passing through the Earth. Then, It was located 5.7 million kilometers from Earth and 5.3 million kilometers from the Moon..

After flying past Venus in August 2025, Juice will fly by Earth again in September 2026 and January 2029. These flybys help steer and accelerate the spacecraft to reach Jupiter in July 2031 using only a minimal amount of fuel, ESA reported.

JANUS is Juice’s science camera, designed to take detailed, high-resolution images of Jupiter and its icy moons. It will study the moons’ global, regional, and local characteristics and processes, as well as mapping Jupiter’s clouds. It will have a resolution of up to 2.4 m per pixel on the Jovian moon Ganymede and about 10 km per pixel on Jupiter.

The primary objective of JANUS observations during and shortly after the Earth-Moon flyby was to evaluate the performance of the instrument, not to make scientific measurements.