Earth by March Probe

ISRO posts first ever image of Earth taken by Mars probe

 

New Delhi: A photo of the Earth taken by the Mars Orbiter probe has been posted by the Indian Space Research Organization on its Facebook page on Wednesday.

The photo includes most of the Indian Peninsula, Tibet, the Middle East, parts of north-eastern Africa, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

“We have a nice little thing to share with all of you... yesterday in the process of testing our payloads we turned the Mars Color Camera towards the Earth and switched it on... and here is the ‘First ever image of Earth Taken by Mars Color Camera,’” said the post on ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission page.

“This image was taken yesterday at around 13:50 hrs from a height of almost 70,000 km above earth and has a spatial resolution of 3.5 km... We are certain we're going to get some great shots in the orbit of Mars,” added ISRO.

Launched on November 5, the probe will monitor the Martian crust and atmosphere for signs of methane and explore the morphology, mineralogy of the Red Planet.

ISRO will move the probe from the earth's orbit towards Mars on December 1.