Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of NASA has sent a gorgeous Christmas gift for people living on earth: a spectacular new picture of our home planet with the natural satellite in the foreground. In the new image, earth looks rising over the lunar horizon.

The US space agency released the stunning image on Friday where earth’s center is off coast of Liberia. Other visible parts in the image are the Sahara Desert, Saudi Arabia and Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America.

Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, said, “The image is simply stunning. The image of the Earth evokes the famous 'Blue Marble' image taken by Astronaut Harrison Schmitt during Apollo 17, 43 years ago, which also showed Africa prominently in the picture”.

NASA said the new picture was composed from a number of images that were taken by LRO on October 12 when the robotic spacecraft was approximately 83 miles above the lunar surface. The moon’s crater Compton, located just beyond the eastern limb of the moon, is also visible in the photo.

The probe captured the image by rolling to the side while it was moving faster than 3,500 miles per hour. First Earthrise image of NASA was captured by the Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft about five decades ago. The most iconic picture of earth from moon was taken by the Apollo 8 mission crew when the probe entered lunar orbit in December 1968.