Earth and Moon in NASA

It is a unique view of our planet from a spacecraft speeding to a rendezvous with an asteroid. NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft took this incredible image of home from 3 million miles (5 million kilometres from Earth, about 13 times the distance between the Earth and Moon.

Asteroid Bennu, a carbon-rich hunk of rock that might contain organic materials or molecular precursors to life. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer—is to map and return samples.

It is also an asteroid that could someday make a close pass or even a collision with Earth, though not for several centuries. The OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft is expected to reach its asteroid destination, Bennu, in August 2018.