Venus, Earth and Mars on November 18, 2020, as seen via the NASA-ESA Solar Orbiter (SolO). This image was taken at a distance of approximately 155.7 million miles (250.6 million km). That’s in contrast to our Sun’s distance from the Earth of about 93 million miles (150 million km). In this image, the sun is on the right, outside the image frame. Image via ESA / NASA / NRL / Solar Orbiter / SolOHI.
What does the Earth look like from space? And … how far away from Earth can we be and still see it with our own eyes?
To find the answers to these questions, we take an imaginary journey through the solar system. Spacecraft exploring our solar system have given us fantastic views of Earth. Keep reading and check out the photos on this page to see what Earth looks like from several other places in our own neighborhood of space.
First, imagine that you are flying away and are about 300 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. That is approximately the height of the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS). The Earth’s surface looms out of the window of the ISS. During the day you can clearly see large landforms. At night, from orbit, you can see the lights of the cities of the earth.
Earth in daylight, from the International Space Station in 2012. The North American Great Lakes shine in the sun. Read more about this image.
The Earth at night, from the ISS in 2012. Ireland is in the foreground and the United Kingdom at the right and right in the back. A bright sunrise is in the background. Greens and purples show an aurora borealis along the rest of the horizon.
Let’s go further away, say, the distance from the moon’s orbit.
As we pass the moon – about a quarter of a million miles (about 380,000 km) away – the Earth looks like a bright ball in space. It’s not very different from the way the moon looks at us.
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The first images of the Earth from the Moon came from the Apollo mission. Apollo 8 in 1968 was the first manned space flight to leave Earth orbit. It was the first terrestrial spacecraft to be captured by and escaped from the gravitational field of another celestial body, in this case the moon.
It was the first trip in which humans visited another world and returned to return to Earth.
Earth seen from the moon via Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968. Image via NASA.
In the decades since Voyager first began traveling outward, lunar exploration has become more common. The robotic Kaguya spacecraft orbited Earth’s moon in 2007. Launched by Japan and officially called the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE), Kaguya studied the origin and evolution of the moon. The frame below is from Kaguya’s built-in HDTV camera.
Earth as seen from the Moon by Kaguya in 2007. Image via SELENE Team JAXA / NHK.
Another image of Kaguya, who got images and still images of the Earth. Remember, if you were on the moon, you wouldn’t see the earth rise or set. But spacecraft orbiting the moon do experience this scene. Image via JAXA.
Now let’s keep moving out until we can see both the Earth and the Moon together in space. The following photo was stunning when it was first released. It shows a crescent-shaped Earth and Moon – the first of its kind ever occupied by a spacecraft – on September 18, 1977.
This photo of a crescent-shaped Earth and Moon – the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft – was taken by Voyager 1 on September 18, 1977, at a distance of 7.25 million miles (11.66 million km) from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and outside of Earth, as seen by Voyager. Image via NASA.
Since 1977, many robotic spacecraft have ventured out into our solar system. The mosaic below shows images of the Earth and Moon obtained by the multispectral image sensor on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Spacecraft (NEAR) on January 23, 1998, 19 hours after the spacecraft swung past Earth on its way to the asteroid 433 Eros. The images from both were taken from a range of 250,000 miles (400,000 km), about the same as the distance between the two bodies.
Earth and Moon seen by NEAR spacecraft in 1998.
As you rush out from the Earth and Moon system, you will pass the orbits of the planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Of all these worlds, the earth looks like a star, which fades as you get further away.
Earth and Moon as seen from Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover on Jan. 31, 2014. Learn more about this image.
View bigger. | Earth seen behind Saturn’s rings. Do you see us at the bottom right? Mars and Venus are at the top left. Image via the Cassini spacecraft, July 19, 2013.
This is the famous image known as Pale Blue Dot. It is a picture of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 space probe on February 14, 1990, from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). The Earth is the bluish-white dot about halfway up the brown band on the right.
The above images are of Saturn, the sixth planet orbiting the sun. I have never seen an image of Earth from Uranus or Neptune or any other body outside of Saturn’s orbit. Only five spacecraft from Earth – the two Voyager spacecraft, the two Pioneers, and the New Horizons spacecraft, which passed Pluto in 2015 – have ever ventured that far. Those craft were not designed to look back to Earth, and as far as I know, they did not capture Earth from distances beyond Saturn.
But, theoretically speaking now, can Earth be seen from distances beyond Saturn?
Speak only in terms of that of the Earth Brightness, the answer is yes. Our world is not getting too dim to see with the eye alone far beyond Neptune’s orbit, about 14 billion kilometers from home. Now consider Pluto’s orbit. It is highly elliptical, stretching from just 2.7 billion miles (4.4 billion km) to more than 4.5 billion miles (7.3 billion km) from the sun. Pluto is within the limiting distance at which – if we look only at brightness, not other factors – we should be able to see Earth only by eye.
But there is another factor. When you leave Earth, our world seems closer and closer to the scorching sun. As you get further away, the sun’s brilliance begins to overwhelm the view of the Earth. From Pluto – even if it were Earth bright enough to see – you probably couldn’t see it in the glare of the sun.
So that’s the answer to the question of how far you could be from Earth and still see it with your own eyes. While no one knows for sure because no one has tried it (and because human vision differs from person to person), Earth would be impossible to see with an eye anywhere outside Saturn’s orbit.
Now let’s change the game. Let’s just say we could use instruments, not just the eye. Suppose the intrepid astronautastronomers went to Pluto. Suppose they took all the tools they needed to see the Earth in the sunlight. Can they use telescopes, obscuring discs and other techniques to get a glimpse of Earth? Could be!
But it still wouldn’t be easy.
Read more: Wikipedia has a long article on alien skies
In short: what does the Earth look like from space? How far out in space can you see Earth only with the eye? To consider nothing but brightness, the answer is about 9 billion miles (14 billion km) away, roughly the distance from Neptune or Pluto. In practice, however, it would be challenging to see it from that distance, as the sun’s glare would overwhelm the view of the Earth.
