NavCam Image of Earth, the Moon, and Bennu

On Dec. 19, OSIRIS-REx used its NavCam 1 camera to capture this image of three familiar planetary bodies: asteroid Bennu, Earth, and the moon. Despite the spacecraft’s distance from home – about 71 million miles (114 million kilometers) – Earth and the Moon are visible in the lower left due to the long exposure time used for this image (five seconds). The spacecraft’s range to Bennu is only about 27 miles (43 kilometers), so the asteroid appears highly overexposed in the upper right. The head of the constellation Hydra is also visible in the lower right portion of the image.

NavCam 1 is a black-and-white imager that is one of three cameras comprising TAGCAMS (the Touch-and-Go Camera System), which is part of OSIRIS-REx’s guidance, navigation, and control system. TAGCAMS was designed, built and tested by Malin Space Science Systems; Lockheed Martin Space integrated TAGCAMS to the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and operates TAGCAMS.

Date Taken: Dec. 19, 2018

Instrument Used: TAGCAMS (NavCam 1)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin

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