Click on image for
diagram and close-up of
Galapagos Islands Image
The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft captured several stunning images of
Earth during a gravity assist swingby of its home planet on Aug. 2, 2005.
One picture, snapped when MESSENGER was 34,692 miles (55,831 kilometers)
above Earth, shows the Galapagos Islands as tiny specks peeking through an
opening in clouds of the brightly lit dayside of the planet. The line
dividing day and night cuts a swath through South America, with night
about to fall on the western half of the continent. The large bright spot
to the west of South America is the Sun's light scattering off ocean
waves.
These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the
first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. For information
regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER image use policy.
