This is what the Earth looks like when you head for the Sun

On September 25, 2018, a camera on board NASA's Solar Parker Solar Probe captured these photographs that give a glimpse of the Earth (the bright circle on the right image).
(NASA / Naval Research Laboratory / Parker Solar Probe)

NASA's Parker solar probe will never come back to Earth – but it can still look where it comes from.

On September 25, the only camera onboard this probe, launched on August 12, captured a photo of the Shining Earth in a starfield. This camera calls WISPR (wide field imager for solar probe) and actually allows the probe to photograph the structure of the upper atmosphere of the sun, the crown, at the approach of the probe, becoming the # 39; cosmic equivalent of a point of view camera.

The Earth is the bright spot located near the center of the right image. (According to a statement from NASA, the arc-shaped brightness below is only an artifact on how imaging technology designed to work in the world. Sun's atmosphere responds to an individual, especially at a bright spot.)

But there is another secret hidden in the picture. Scientists at the origin of the mission zoomed in on the Earth and spotted a strange bulge on the right side of the planet on the image. But the Earth is not really deformed: this hump happens to be at the edge of the moon, visible from behind our planet.

When Parker Solar Probe captured this image, it was about 27 million kilometers from Earth. Since then, he has continued his fast course towards the sun, thanks to a trajectory adjustment created by the flight made by Venus for the first time out of seven.

This $ 1.5 billion satellite is embarking on a seven-year mission to study the sun in more detail than ever before. Scientists hope the project will help them understand the extremely hot crown and how the solar wind, a river of charged particles that flows out of the sun, is formed. The mission must complete its first solar flyby on November 5th.

Original article on Space.com.