A picture of Earth was recently shared on social media which has not only confused netizens but it had also startled the astronaut who captured it. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet has captured the picture of the blue planet from the International Space Station. When the ESA astronaut looked out of the window from ISS, he was unable to differentiate between Mars and Earth. While sharing the pictures on his Instagram account he wrote, “No cloud in sight and the red and ochre colours stretching to the horizon.” Surprised to see the pictures, netizens amazed took to the comments section to share their opinion.
Pesquet on his Instagram account wrote that he took the image while he was aboard the International Space Station orbiting the Earth. He in the post details that this was how he imagined NASA’s perseverance rover to mars would have seen Mars when it landed on the red planet. The pictures shared by the astronaut depict a reddish and orange coloured landscape and a deep indentation at the centre that is similar to Red planet. Pesquet is part of the SpaceX Crew-2 mission that arrived at the International Space Station in April. Take a look at the post.
While appreciating the human achievement of going to Mars, he gave shout out to NASA teams that flew a helicopter on Mars and also the French teams that recorded the flight with audio. In his post, he also lauded China National Space Administration that landed its Zhurong rover on Mars. He further detailed ESA’s ExoMars TGO mission that is orbiting Mars and the ExoMars rover which is set for launch next year. 
Since being shared on Instagram, the pictures have garnered more than 187000 likes and several reactions from netizens. People amazed by the pictures took to the comments section to express views about magnificent pictures. One user comment, “Incredible.” Another user wrote, “WoW!!!”. Check out some user reactions.
IMAGE: ThomasPesquet/Instagram