NASA's first asteroid-sampling mission OSIRIS-REx has captured an incredible image of the Earth, the media reported.
The image was captured on December 19, 2018, days before Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) went into orbit around Bennu on New Year's Eve, the Daily Mail reported.
Bennu is the smallest ever celestial body to be orbited by a spacecraft.
The picture shows the asteroid Bennu, top right, about 43 kilometres from the spacecraft, and the Earth and moon, bottom left, more than 110 million kilometres away.
The tiny asteroid -- barely 500 meters across -- appears as a big bright blob in the long-exposure photo released last week, the report said.
Launched from Florida in 2016, OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reached Bennu on December 3, 2018 after travelling more than one billion miles through space. The spacecraft will spend almost a year surveying the space rock from orbit.
On January 1, 2019, the spacecraft, 110 million kilometres away, carried out a single, eight-second burn of its thrusters. Now, it will circle Bennu about 1.75 kilometres from its centre, closer than any other spacecraft has come to its celestial object of study.
Previously, the closest orbit of a planetary body was in May 2016, when the Rosetta spacecraft orbited about seven kilometres from the centre of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
The spacecraft is scheduled to orbit Bennu through mid-February at a leisurely 62 hours per orbit.
The OSIRIS-REx team will resume science operations in late February.
At that point, the spacecraft will perform a series of close flybys of Bennu for several months to take high-resolution images of every square inch of the asteroid to help select a sampling site.
During the summer of 2020, the spacecraft will briefly touch the surface of Bennu to retrieve a sample.
The OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to deliver the sample to Earth in September 2023.
NASA To Decide Stranded Starliner Astronauts' Route Home By End Of Month NASA Explains How Intense Geomagnetic Storms Lead to Stunning Auroras Underground Reservouir on Mars Could Fill Oceans on Planet's Surface, Study Reveals 2 French Rafale Jets Collide Mid-Air, Instructor, Pilot Missing Mob Vandalised Kolkata Doctor Rape Murder Case Crime Scene? Cops Respond Ayatollah Khamenei Warns Of "Divine Wrath" If Iran Backs Down Against Israel Uniform Civil Code, 2036 Olympics: 10 Highlights From PM Modi's I-Day Speech Cops Post Rioters' Pics After Vandalism During Kolkata Rape-Murder Protest NEET PG 2024 Results To Be Out Soon, Check Details Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.