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Tiny, Mars-bound satellite snaps its first image of Earth and the Moon
FoxNews.com/Science ^ | May 17, 2018 | Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer

Posted on 05/20/2018 7:13:18 PM PDT by ETL

A tiny satellite on its way to Mars has opened its eyes and captured a view of home.

One of NASA's two Mars Cube One (MarCO) cubesats, which launched toward the Red Planet along with the agency's InSight lander on May 5, took a photo on May 9 to help confirm that its high-gain antenna had deployed properly.

The antenna is in the photo. And so are the moon and Earth, the latter of which appears as a pale blue dot, just as it did in a famous photo taken by NASA's Voyager 1 probe in 1990. ..." (snip)

Despite the "pale blue dot" photos' similarity, the two cubesats, known as MarCO-A and MarCO-B, are nowhere near as far afield as Voyager 1 was back in 1990.

The older probe [Voyager 1] took its iconic image from a distance of about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers), whereas the two cubesats were about 620,000 miles (1 million km) from Earth on May 8, the day before MarCO-B snapped the newly released image, NASA officials said.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Chit/Chat; Science
KEYWORDS: astronomy; mars; marsmarscubeone; nasa; science; spaceexploration

The Earth and moon star in this first photo from Wall-E, one of NASA's two Mars Cube One cubesats, that launched with the agency's InSight Mars lander on May 5, 2018. This view of Earth and the moon was taken May 9. [620,000 miles](NASA/JPL-Caltech)


In 1990, the Voyager 1 space probe took a picture of the earth, named as the “Pale Blue Dot” from 3.7 billion miles away.

1 posted on 05/20/2018 7:13:18 PM PDT by ETL
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To: ETL

Looks flat to me.


2 posted on 05/20/2018 7:25:49 PM PDT by Mr. Blond
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To: ETL

how large are these two satellites?


3 posted on 05/20/2018 7:30:50 PM PDT by txnativegop (The political left, Mankinds intellectual hemlock)
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To: Mr. Blond

It’s clearly a donut.


4 posted on 05/20/2018 7:31:38 PM PDT by T-Bone Texan
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To: ETL

wow


5 posted on 05/20/2018 7:33:16 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: ETL

I was looking at that photo thinking “well at least the light from the shade, will be dimming as the telescope flies further away from the sun”.

Until it dawned on my, it will actually be getting brighter, then.

I guess the telescope will be somewhat limited on it’s view, for the most light-sensitive shots, to only 180% degree or just shy of that.


6 posted on 05/20/2018 7:35:53 PM PDT by cba123 ( Toi la nguoi My. Toi bay gio o Viet Nam.)
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To: ETL

OK, so the earth is not round.


7 posted on 05/20/2018 7:43:04 PM PDT by TChad (Leftthink: Reality is sadly out of touch with the higher truth.)
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To: ETL

I see my house!


8 posted on 05/20/2018 7:47:37 PM PDT by neverevergiveup
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To: txnativegop

On May 5, 2018, NASA launched a stationary lander called InSight to Mars. Riding along with InSight were two CubeSats — the first of this kind of spacecraft to fly to deep space. If this flyby demonstration is successful, the technology onboard each CubeSat will provide NASA the ability to quickly transmit status information about InSight as it lands on Mars.

The twin communications-relay CubeSats, built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, constitute a technology demonstration called Mars Cube One (MarCO). CubeSats are a class of spacecraft based on a standardized small size and modular use of off-the-shelf technologies. Many have been made by university students, and dozens have been launched into Earth orbit using extra payload mass available on launches of larger spacecraft.

The basic CubeSat unit is a box roughly 4 inches (10 centimeters) square. Larger CubeSats are multiples of that unit. MarCO’s design is a six-unit CubeSat - about the size of a briefcase — with a stowed size of about 14.4 inches (36.6 centimeters) by 9.5 inches (24.3 centimeters) by 4.6 inches (11.8 centimeters).


9 posted on 05/20/2018 7:48:08 PM PDT by Moonman62 (Give a man a fish and he'll be a Democrat. Teach a man to fish and he'll be a responsible citizen.)
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To: txnativegop

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/marco.php


10 posted on 05/20/2018 7:48:48 PM PDT by Moonman62 (Give a man a fish and he'll be a Democrat. Teach a man to fish and he'll be a responsible citizen.)
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To: neverevergiveup

I can see Russia and your house!


11 posted on 05/20/2018 7:52:10 PM PDT by Alas Babylon! (MAGAMarchOnWashington.com)
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To: ETL

They must have equipped the satellite with an iPhone X ...


12 posted on 05/20/2018 7:59:35 PM PDT by SecondAmendment (Restoring our Republic at 9.8357x10^8 FPS)
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To: ETL
Here is a recently re-processed image of Pluto from New Horizons.


13 posted on 05/20/2018 8:51:00 PM PDT by DoodleBob
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To: Mr. Blond

rofl!


14 posted on 05/21/2018 12:19:01 AM PDT by EliRoom8
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To: txnativegop


15 posted on 05/21/2018 2:57:00 AM PDT by ETL (Obama-Hillary, REAL Russia collusion! Uranium-One Deal, Missile Defense, Iran Deal, Nukes: Click ETL)
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To: ETL
?Trolling for Borg?


16 posted on 05/21/2018 4:58:11 AM PDT by mabarker1 (congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!!)
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To: mabarker1

17 posted on 05/21/2018 5:31:28 AM PDT by ETL (Obama-Hillary, REAL Russia collusion! Uranium-One Deal, Missile Defense, Iran Deal, Nukes: Click ETL)
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To: DoodleBob

Looks like you can unscrew one half from the other. I wonder what they’d find inside if they can one day manage to do it. Might find an entire alien civilization. :)


18 posted on 05/21/2018 5:43:08 AM PDT by ETL (Obama-Hillary, REAL Russia collusion! Uranium-One Deal, Missile Defense, Iran Deal, Nukes: Click ETL)
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To: ETL

19 posted on 05/21/2018 7:17:46 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set.)
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To: ETL

Very small indeed.

These are neat.


20 posted on 05/21/2018 5:01:31 PM PDT by txnativegop (The political left, Mankinds intellectual hemlock)
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