Posted on behalf of Amber Dance

This week NASA released a movie of the Earth and Moon, as seen from 31 million miles away. In the images, one for every 15 minutes, the Earth turns and the Moon darts across its face (see still series, below). In an infrared version, vegetation shows up as red.

The hope is that if we know what Earth looks like from space, we’ll be better able to identify Earth-like planets. Not that images of far-off worlds are likely to show this kind of detail, but we may catch a reflection of sunlight on water or evidence for plant life.

The camera operator is NASA’s Deep Impact (the spacecraft, not the movie), originally sent off to examine the comet Tempel 1. Having completed that mission, it’s doing overtime and taking images of other planets en route to a second cometary rendezvous, Boethin Hartley 2.

Also out this week is a picture series of Jupiter’s three Red Spots dancing about each other. Bad news for the baby spot — it looks like the biggest one’s about to swallow it.

Image: Donald J. Lindler, Sigma Space Corporation/GSFC; EPOCh/DIXI Science Teams