What Would Earth and the Moon Look like from Mars?

"Sometimes the image shows both objects in detail, as the DSCOVR satellite did in 2015. Sometimes the Earth and moon are fuzzy and pixelated, like they were in a shot from 2003 by the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, giving some sense of distance. More often they're just dots, points of light that are almost lost among the stars, as the Psyche mission saw from 290 million kilometers away in July 2025."

"In the black-and-white shot Earth is hanging in the pearly glow of the Martian twilight, the hilly horizon silhouetted at the bottom. It's an image that almost begs us to wonder how it would feel to stand there on the Red Planet and see it for ourselves."

Spacecraft snapshots of Earth and the Moon from great distances produce striking shifts in perspective. Images can show both bodies in clear detail, appear fuzzy and pixelated, or register as nearly indistinguishable dots among stars. Specific examples include detailed DSCOVR imagery, a pixelated Mars Express shot from 2003, and Psyche's distant view from 290 million kilometers in July 2025. Smaller apparent size in such images emphasizes the enormous scale of deep space and Earth's isolation. A rarer perspective arises from another world's surface: NASA's Spirit rover imaged Earth from Mars in 2004, showing Earth as a pearly point above a silhouetted horizon.

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