Our planet is really beautiful, don't you think? And a new image released this week is further proof of this! Registered by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, according to Mike Wall of Space.com, the photo shows the Earth in all its splendor - roundness and sphericity - 170, 000 kilometers away as the spacecraft sets off on a voyage. to an asteroid called Bennu, where the device must take samples of material. Check out the image in more detail below:

Isn't it just beautiful? (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / University of Arizona)

Wonderful

According to Mike, the image was recorded by the spacecraft on September 22 and was obtained from several very short exposures. That's because OSIRIS-REx is equipped with a special camera for capturing photos in low light, such as the surface of an asteroid - not as a well-lit star like Earth. So the capture you saw above had to be done in several steps.

By the way, that's why there are those black lines at the top of the image that give the impression that there's a sinister substance leaking out of our world - did you notice? Still on the photo, you can see Australia in the lower left, vast portions of the Pacific Ocean in the central area and the southwestern United States and Lower California in the upper right.

Look at the size of the child ... (NASA)

Regarding this asteroid-visiting space probe story, NASA people estimate that if everything goes in as expected, the spacecraft should reach Bennu by the end of next year. This space rock is about 500 meters in diameter and is listed among the stars with the greatest potential to reach Earth one day.

OSIRIS-REx's mission is to gather information about the asteroid over an 18-month period, collect samples from its surface - around July 2020 - and dispatch this material to our planet for analysis.

The space "order" is expected to arrive here in September 2023, and by examining the asteroid fragments, scientists hope to better understand how the Solar System formed and what role space rocks like Bennu had to bring about. materials necessary for the emergence of life on earth.