NASA's OSIRIS-REx captures Earth in all its glory while on its way to Bennu – See pic

Image courtesy: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona

New Delhi: NASA's asteroid sample return spacecraft flew past Earth on Friday on its way to asteroid Bennu, for a rendezvous next August.

Launched in September 2016, the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) spacecraft came within 17,237 km of Antarctica at 12:52 pm EDT (10:22 pm IST) on Friday, just south of Cape Horn, Chile, before following a route north over the Pacific Ocean.

While whizzing past our home planet, the MapCam camera on the spacecraft looked towards Earth to capture a color composite image, which NASA has now released.

The image was taken on September 22, just hours after the spacecraft completed its Earth Gravity Assist at a range of approximately 106,000 miles (170,000 kilometers).

The Pacific Ocean and several familiar landmasses, including Australia in the lower left, and Baja California and the southwestern United States in the upper right are visible in the image.

The dark vertical streaks at the top of the image are caused by short exposure times (less than three milliseconds), NASA said.