You'll likely catch this image a million times in your various feeds: Earth as seen by Reid Wiseman from Artemis II en-route to the Moon.

My first thought? That's *really* noisy 🧐

But then I realised – it's the *nightside* of Earth, illuminated by the almost full Moon, not the Sun 🌕

The bright limb at lower-right is where the dayside starts, & the fact that you can see aurorae, airglow, & cities in Europe, Africa, & S & N America also gives the game away.

Cool.

#Photography #Artemis

@markmccaughrean I love the skim of atmosphere, particularly where it's not so bright.

@Azuaron That thin airglow layer at around 80km is really important in ground-based astronomy.

It's particularly bright in the infrared, dominating the background for near-IR observations, but it's also where the sodium atoms are that are used to create laser guide stars for adaptive optics.

Swings & roundabouts 🙂