The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft captured several stunning images of Earth during a gravity assist swingby of its home planet on Aug. 2, 2005. Several hundred images, taken with the wide-angle camera in MESSENGER's Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS),were sequenced into a movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth. Comprising 358 frames taken over 24 hours, the movie follows Earth through one complete rotation. The spacecraft was 40,761 miles (65,598 kilometres) above South America when the camera started rolling on Aug. 2. It was 270,847 miles (435,885 kilometres) away from Earth??arther than the Moon's orbit??hen it snapped the last image on Aug.3. These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. Photo via Newscom