Away from Mars, With Reflection

MarCO-B, one of the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took this image of Mars from about 10,900 miles (17,500 kilometers) away just after NASA’s InSight spacecraft landed on Mars on Nov. 26, 2018. MarCO-B flew by Mars with its twin, MarCO-A, to serve as communications relays for InSight as it touched down on the Red Planet around noon PST (3 p.m. EST). This image was taken at 1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. EST).

A crescent Mars with its south pole in the 4 o’clock position is visible in this picture. MarCO-B’s antenna reflector mirrors a portion of the illuminated part of Mars on the bottom right. The antenna feed (white rectangle with gold squares) is visible on the left. This image was taken about 50 minutes after PIA22833 and 10 seconds after PIA22832.

The MarCO and InSight projects are managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, by JPL, a division of Caltech, Pasadena.