andsoitisArtemis II crew take 'spectacular' image of Earth
I was confused when I first saw this photo, as I don't think I've ever before seen a nightside, moonlit Earth, exposed so that it looks like the dayside at a first glance. I wonder how many casual viewers actually realize it's the night side. A nice demonstration of how moonlight is pretty much exactly like sunlight, just much much dimmer. In particular it has the same color, even though moonlight is often thought of as bluish and sunlight as yellowish!
It explains why the image is so grainy. At first I was confused what that stripe to the left and the bottom was. But it’s just the window edge, and the noise isn’t stars.
I’m talking about the grainy noise over all the black parts (actually over the Earth disk as well), including beyond the window edge. The window edge itself looks like a denser and brighter stripe of stars.
Zoom into this higher-resolution version: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019...
Yep, that's definitely noise.