Venus, Earth, and Mars on November 18, 2020, as seen through NASA-ESA’s Solar Orbiter (SolO). This image was captured from approximately 155.7 million miles (250.6 million km) away. That compares to our solar distance from Earth of about 93 million miles (150 million km). In this image, the sun is located on the right, outside the frame of the image. Image via ESA / NASA / NRL / Solar Orbiter / SolOHI.
What is the Earth like from the outside? And… how far away from Earth can we still be and see with our own eyes?
To find the answers to these questions, let us take an imaginary journey through the solar system. A spacecraft exploring our solar system has given us amazing views of the Earth. Keep reading, and take a look at the pictures on this page, to see how the Earth looks from different places in our own area of space.
First, imagine an explosion and being about 200 miles (300 km) above the Earth’s surface. That is around the height of the International Space Station (ISS) orbit. From the ISS window, the Earth’s surface connects dramatically. During the day, you can clearly see major landscapes. At night, from Earth’s orbit, you can see the lights of Earth’s cities.
Earth in broad daylight, from the International Space Station in 2012. The Great Lakes of America shine in the sun. Read more about this image.
Land at night, from the ISS in 2012. Ireland is in the foreground, with the United Kingdom in the background and on the right. There is a bright sunrise in the background. Green and purple show aurora borealis throughout the rest of the horizon.
We get farther, say, the orbit distance of the moon.
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 terribly different from the way the moon looks at us.
EarthSky lunar calendars show the phase of the moon for each day in 2021. We’re sure we’ll sell them out. Get one while you can!
The first images of the Earth from the moon came from the Apollo mission. Apollo 8 in 1968 was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth’s orbit. It was the first terrestrial spacecraft to be captured by and escaped from the grave field of another cloud group, in this case the moon.
It was the first voyage in which people visited another world and returned to return to Earth.
Earth visible from the moon through Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968. Image through NASA.
In the decades since Voyager first began to travel outdoors, lunar exploration has become more common. The robotic spacecraft Kaguya orbited the Earth’s moon in 2007. Launched by Japan, and officially named the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE), Kaguya studied the origin and evolution of the moon. The frame below is from a Kaguya camera on board an HDTV.
The earth seen from the moon by Kaguya in 2007. Image through SELENE JAXA / NHK Team.
Another image from Kaguya, who received a film and pictures of the state of the Earth. Remember, if you were on the moon, you would not see the Earth rising or setting. But the spacecraft in orbit around the moon is experiencing this view. Image via JAXA.
Now let’s keep moving outward so that we can see both the Earth and the moon together in space. The next picture was mind blowing when it was first released. It shows a crescent-shaped Earth and moon – the first of its kind ever built by a spaceship – on 18 September 1977.
This crescent-shaped image of Earth and a moon – the 1st of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft – was recorded on September 18, 1977, with a Voyager 1 at a distance of 7.25 million miles (11.66 million km). from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and beyond the Earth as seen by Voyager. Image through NASA.
Since 1977, many robot spacecraft have migrated to our solar system. The mosaic below shows images of the Earth and the moon obtained by the multi-view Asteroid Rendezvous Near NE Earth (NEAR) spacecraft on January 23, 1998, 19 hours after the spacecraft to land on its way to the asteroid 433 Eros. The images of 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 the NEAR spacecraft in 1998.
Exiting the Earth and Moon system, you will pass the orbits of the planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. From all these worlds, the Earth looks like a star, which weakens as you go farther.
Earth and moon, as seen from Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover on January 31, 2014. Read more about this image.
See more. | Land visible behind Saturn’s rings. See below right? Mars and Venus are in the top left. Image through Cassini spacecraft, 19 July 2013.
This is the famous image called Pale Blue Dot. This is a photograph of Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by space explorer Voyager 1 from a maximum distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). The Earth is a bluish-white speck about halfway down the brown band on the right.
The images above are from Saturn, the sixth outer planet in orbit around the sun. I have never seen an image of the Earth from Uranus or Neptune or any other body beyond the orbit of Saturn. Only five spacecraft from Earth – the two Voyager spacecraft, the two Pioneers, and the New Horizons spacecraft, which passed Pluto in 2015 – have never gone that far. These crafts were not designed to look back on Earth, and, to my knowledge, did not capture images of the Earth from distances beyond Saturn.
But, speaking theoretically now, would the Earth be seen from distances beyond Saturn?
Speaking only of the Earth gile, the answer is yes. Our world is not becoming too weak to see with the naked eye far beyond the orbit of Neptune, at about 9 billion miles (14 billion km) 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 limited distance at which it should be – if we are just considering clarity by itself, without any other factors – we should be able to see the Earth with the eye alone.
But then is another feature. As you step out of the Earth, our world appears closer and closer to the burning sun. As you get further away, the sunshine begins to take over the view of the Earth. From Pluto – even if the Earth White plenty to see – you might not see it in the sunshine.
So that is the answer to the question of how far you could be from Earth, and still see with your own eyes. Although no-one knows for sure that no-one has tried it (and because human vision varies from person to person), it would be impossible to see the Earth with the eye somewhere beyond orbit. Saturn.
Now, we will change the game. We will say could use instruments, and not just the eye. Osbarr intrepid astronaut-astronauts I went to Pluto. Osbarr took all the instruments they needed to see the Earth in the sunshine. Could they use telescopes, hidden discs, and other means to gain a view of the Earth? Probably!
But still it would not be easy.
Read more: Wikipedia has a long writing on outer skies
Bottom line: How does the Earth look from space? How far away in space could you see the Earth with the naked eye? Considering only clarity, the answer is about 9 billion miles (14 billion km) away, around the distance of Neptune or Pluto. In practice, however, it would be a challenge to see from that distance as the sunshine would get over the Earth’s view.
