This is what the Earth and the Moon look like from five million kilometers away

This photograph of Earth and the Moon was taken by the JANUS camera on board the mission Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) from ESA.

It was taken on September 9, 2024, as Juice was heading toward Venus after passing by Earth. At that time, it was 5.7 million kilometers from Earth and 5.3 million kilometers from the Moon.

After flying past Venus in August 2025, Juice will fly by Earth again in September 2026 and January 2029. These flybys help steer and accelerate the spacecraft so it can reach Jupiter in July 2031 using only a minimal amount of fuel, ESA said.

JANUS is Juice’s science camera, designed to take detailed, high-resolution images of Jupiter and its icy moons. It will study the moons’ global, regional, and local features and processes, as well as map Jupiter’s cloud tops. It will have a resolution of up to 2.4 m per pixel on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede and about 10 km per pixel on Jupiter.

The primary objective of JANUS observations during and shortly after the Earth-Moon flyby was to evaluate instrument performance, not to make scientific measurements.