| Photo: NASA |
After nine days of journeying around the moon, the Artemis II mission has come to a successful conclusion with the crew landing safely in the Pacific Ocean on the evening of April 10. The lunar flyby portion of the trip lasted roughly seven hours, and the crew said they took over 10,000 images during that time alone, so there are an untold number of images from the entire mission.
While NASA hasn’t uploaded anywhere near that many, the organization has been sharing plenty across various platforms, including its own website. We’ve been keeping our eyes on those photographs and have compiled a selection of our favorites from pre-launch through splashdown, which you can see at the bottom of this article.
The photographs are absolutely stunning simply for what they are, but the crew wasn’t only taking them to create pretty images. They were also intended for scientific purposes, and there’s a lot you can learn from them as a result. I’m no scientist, though, so I’ve really been enjoying listening to those who know more explain some of what’s going on.
One such example is a video by Hank Green, a popular YouTuber and science communicator. In the video, Green walks through some of the photographs taken by the Artemis II crew, explaining in depth what we are looking at and providing additional context behind the photographs. For example, in one of the images of the Earth, Green points out the sodium line that goes all the way around the planet, explaining what it is and what its importance is.
Green also covers some things we photographers already know, such as why Earth looks so big in some shots (telephoto focal lengths), and some things caused by factors inherent to space, such as the surreal lighting in some shots. In his words: “Pictures are often worth a thousand words, but sometimes they are worth considerably more than that.” It’s a fantastic video, well worth watching all the way through.
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CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut and Artemis II Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen is seen taking images through the Orion spacecraft window during the Artemis II lunar flyby. Photo: NASA |
Artemis II pilot Victor Glover summed it up nicely when witnessing the eclipse from the spacecraft: “It is truly hard to describe.” We can’t wait to see even more from NASA once they are able to go through the enormous number of images and videos from these inspiring astronauts.
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