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05 March 2004

Gallery: Crescent Moon over Earth's limb

This stunning view of the crescent Moon over Earth's limb was made from the International Space Station on 18 December 2003 at 15:44:29 UTC. The Space Station was 199 nautical miles (369 km) over 38.9 N, 13.3 W. The blue color of the upper atmosphere is caused by scattering from air molecules. Some of the blue, including the curved feature of slightly darker blue, may also be caused by ozone.

The image was made through an 800 mm lens by a digital camera having a resolution of 2000 x 1312 pixels. Because the original image file was provided by Russia, the photographer was apparently a Russian cosmonaut. Image courtesy of Earth Sciences and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center (File Name ISS008-E-8951.JPG. See http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS008&roll=E&frame=8951).