Mark McCaughrean9h ago

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

Show threadbouriquet
@markmccaughrean The classic big blue marble
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Show threadMark McCaughrean4h ago

@bouriquet Kind of, but different – it’s the nightside of Earth, so very faintly illuminated by the Moon only, meaning by you can see the aurorae & airglow in shot, which you’d never see on the dayside.

And the perspective is pretty tight, from only 10,000km or so above the surface, just 1.5 Earth radii. That means you see quite a bit less than a full hemisphere as you would from the Moon itself, say 🙂