First Galileo Earth Flyby
This color image of the Earth was obtained by the Galileo spacecraft at about 6:10 a.m. PST on Dec. 11, 1990, when the spacecraft was about 1.3 million miles from the Earth. The color composite used images taken through the red, green and violet filters. South America is near the center of the picture, and the white, sunlit continent of Antarctica is below. Picturesque weather fronts are visible in the South Atlantic, lower right. This is the first frame of the Galileo Earth spin movie, a 500-frame time-lapse motion picture showing a 25-hour period of Earth's rotation and atmospheric dynamics.