PIA00515: Computer Generated View of Earth as seen from the Asteroid Toutatis

Target Name: Toutatis Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun) Product Size: 4096 samples x 3072 lines Produced By: JPL Producer ID: P48083 Addition Date: 1996-11-27 Full-Res TIFF: PIA00515.tif (4.795 MB) Full-Res JPEG: PIA00515.jpg (307.3 kB)

Original Caption Released with Image: This computer generated image depicts a view of Earth as seen from the surface of the asteroid Toutatis on Nov 29th 1996. A 2.5 degree field-of-view synthetic computer camera was used for this simulation. Toutatis is visible on this date as a twelfth magnitude object in the night sky in the constellation of Virgo and could be viewed with a medium sized telescope. Toutatis currently approaches Earth once every four years and, on Nov. 29th, 1996 will be 5.2 million kilometers away (approx. 3.3 million miles). In approximately 8 years, on Sept. 29th, 2004, it will be less than 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. This is only 4 times the distance to the moon, and is the closest approach predicted for any known asteroid or comet during the next 60 years. Image Credit: NASA/JPL