This beautiful image of Earth, Moon was recently captured by NASA's Lucy spacecraft from 1.4 million km

NASA's asteroid-hunter Lucy captured this image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 890,000 miles (1.4 million km) on October 13, 2022, as part of an instrument calibration sequence as the spacecraft approached Earth for its first of three Earth gravity assists.

Another image captured by the spacecraft on October 15 provides a close-up look at our home planet. Captured at a distance of 380,000 miles (620,000 km), the upper left of the image includes a view of Hadar, Ethiopia, home to the 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor fossil for which the spacecraft was named.

Hello, beautiful! As the #LucyMission passed by Earth recently, it captured this look at our planet. The upper left of the image includes a view of Hadar, Ethiopia, home to the 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor fossil for which the spacecraft was named https://t.co/EiQj0xIDr3 pic.twitter.com/BaO0s6PTbO

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) October 25, 2022

Both images were taken with Lucy's Terminal Tracking Camera (T2CAM) system, a pair of identical cameras designed to track the asteroids during the spacecraft's high-speed encounters.

NASA's Lucy is the first-ever mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids up close. The spacecraft embarked on a 12-year-journey to study these distant asteroids, which are the remnants from the early solar system, on October 16, 2021, and is scheduled to arrive at its first asteroid target in 2025.

To reach these distant asteroids, Lucy's trajectory includes three Earth gravity assists to boost it on its journey to these enigmatic asteroids. The October 16 gravity assist was one of three maneuvers the spacecraft will rely on to catapult itself to its deep-space targets. The close approach placed lucy on a new trajectory for a two-year orbit and provided the spacecraft with some of the orbital energy it needs to travel to this never-before-visited population of asteroids.