07/27/2026
I've reported on the launch🚀 of the NASA twin ESCAPADE🛰️ mission several months ago and I recently checked in the on the mission.
The ESCAPADE "Blue" spacecraft captured rare views of Earth 🌎and Moon 🌖 in visible (left) and thermal infrared (right) on way to Mars. The spacecraft was 363,250 miles (584,600 km) from Earth and 115,600 miles (186,100 km) from the Moon, making the Moon appear relatively large.
In visible light, both Earth and the Moon appear as slender crescents illuminated by the Sun. But the thermal infrared view tells a very different story, revealing how each world stores and radiates heat. The thermal infrared image reveals just how unique our planet is.
The thermal infrared image highlights one of the biggest differences between the two celestial bodies. Earth's nightside continues to glow because its atmosphere and oceans retain and redistribute heat, allowing the planet to emit thermal energy even in darkness, making our world capable of sustaining life.
The Moon, however, lacks an atmosphere and large bodies of water that act as a heat sink. Without anything to trap heat, the Moon's nightside 🌑 plunges to an extreme -280 deg F (-173 deg C, 100 K) making it appear far colder❄️ in thermal infrared observations.
The ESCAPADE spacecraft are currently in a “loiter” orbit around Lagrange point 2, a location in space about a million miles from Earth. In Nov 2026, the spacecraft will fly by Earth to use the planet’s gravity to slingshot their way to Mars, arriving in Sep 2027.
ESCAPADE will study how the solar wind interacts with the Martian environment and how that drives atmospheric loss at the Red Planet.
