In our previous post, we shared images of the Earth taken by Hayabusa2, as the spacecraft approached for the Earth swing-by. There, we showed the Earth from 09:00 JST (00:00 UT) through to 17:45 JST (08:45 UT). In this post, we extend the animation to show all the images that were taken of the Earth from the ONC-W2 camera during the Earth approach which runs to 18:30 JST (09:00 UT) (Figure 1). Figure 2 shows the images individually that comprise the animation, totaling 19 separate frames.

• Figure 1 The images of the Earth taken by ONC-W2. The time (UTC) of each image and the distance from the Earth are shown in the photo. The images were taken from 00:00 to 09:15 (UTC) on December 3, 2015. The viewing angle is at about 60 degrees. (©JAXA)

• Figure 2 The images of the Earth taken by ONC-W2 just before the Earth swing-by of Hayabusa2 on December 3, 2015. These images are the same as those shown in the animation of Figure 1. (©JAXA)

※ ONC-W2 was developed by JAXA, The University of Tokyo, Chiba Institute of Technology, Rikkyo University, Meiji University, Nagoya University, The University of Aizu, and Kochi University.