Updated

India's space agency has released an image of Mars taken by the nation's first interplanetary spacecraft.

The blurry image showing a surface pockmarked with giant craters was taken after the Martian Orbiter Mission, affectionately nicknamed MOM, took its position above the red planet.

The Indian Space and Research Organisation says the satellite was about 7,300 kilometers (4,536 miles) from the planet's surface when the image was snapped on Wednesday. It takes about 12 minutes for the digital data to reach Earth.

Space agency scientists released the image Thursday after first showing it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.