The Earth from the Moon

This image of the far side of the lunar surface, with Earth in the background, was taken by NASA's MoonKAM system onboard the Ebb spacecraft as part of the first image set taken from lunar orbit from March 15-18, 2012. A little more than half-way up and on the left side of the image is the crater De Forest. Due to its proximity to the southern pole, De Forest receives sunlight at an oblique angle when it is on the illuminated half of the Moon.

MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students), is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, and her team at Sally Ride Science, in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego. Over 2,700 schools in 52 countries have signed up to participate in MoonKAM.

Photo credit: NASA/Caltech-JPL/MIT/SRS

Note: For more information, see NASA GRAIL Returns First Student-Selected Moon Images.