This view of the twilight sky and Martian horizon taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes Earth as the brightest point of light in the night sky. Earth is a little left of center in the image, and our moon is just below Earth. Two annotated versions of this image are also available in Figures 1 and 2.
Researchers used the left eye camera of Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) to capture this scene about 80 minutes after sunset on the 529th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (January 31, 2014). The image has been processed to remove effects of cosmic rays.
A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct, bright "evening stars."
The distance between Earth and Mars when Curiosity took the photo was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers).
Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/TAMU
Note: For more information, see PIA17935: Curiosity Mars Rover's First Image of Earth and Earth's Moon and NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Sees 'Evening Star' Earth.
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