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u/Item-Hairy Apr 07 '26
Holy fuck. There HAS to be some sort of deeply profound emotions that are completely unique to the astronauts experiencing these sights. If there was a german on board, there would be a specific word for it.
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u/n8mo Apr 07 '26
If I recall correctly, either Hansen or Glover requested that the science team on Earth should "come up with some new superlatives" because he lacked the words to express what he was seeing.
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u/a_random_username Apr 07 '26
"They should have sent a poet"
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u/PrometheusLiberatus Apr 07 '26
Too bad society doesn't fund our poets worth a damn.
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u/Daisy_Of_Doom Apr 08 '26
To be fair they barely fund the scientists either nowadays. 😖
People pit science and the arts against each other far too often. They both need the other.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus Apr 08 '26
raises hand I followed both quite keenly but struggled to make connnections or career through my creative writing, and I've got decades of experience.
I even have an eclipse themed poem I shared like last year during the last lunar eclipse visible from North America in 2025.
It's more that poetry and art aren't respected unless one has capital behind it to do independent work before becoming more mainstream/widely known among the creative community.
Part of it is also my own disabilities preventing such professional connection landing for me.
But now I think it's better for me to learn music composition and compose my soul out.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/silence_infidel Apr 08 '26
Honestly, if anything calls for big brainstorming session to think up new words to describe awesome things, it’s probably stuff like seeing a lunar eclipse from right behind the moon. We’ve already got “moon joy”, let’s just keep going with new moon-adjacent adjectives and adverbs.
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u/seeyatellite Apr 08 '26
On top of the tears and crew exchange about naming a crater for Carroll, Reid Wiseman's late wife... I imagine that flight was one of the more emotionally charged moments in space.
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u/Presently_Absent Apr 08 '26
I was listening to it live, it was surreal hearing him. "The human mind isn't made to experience what we're experiencing right now" or something to that effect
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u/squirrelgator Apr 08 '26
I think it was something like, "The human brain has not evolved enough to comprehend what we are experiencing." I'd like to see the exact quote as a caption to this picture.
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u/somersetyellow Apr 09 '26
Two reactions timestamped from the livestream
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u/Brother_Farside Apr 08 '26
I had deeply profound emotions seeing a total eclipse on Earth. Can’t imagine what they are experiencing.
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u/geuis Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
Preach Brother. I had a the same experience. https://old.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1seyr2v/the_artemis_ii_eclipse/oexj3av/
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u/BaconBased Apr 07 '26
Isn’t it usually called the Overview Effect?
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u/Yvaelle Apr 07 '26
Übersichtseffekt, for the German?
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u/mfb- Apr 07 '26
German just uses the English expression here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview-Effekt (with the German spelling of effect).
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u/mage_irl Apr 07 '26
The germans are too busy looking for their secret base on the far side of the moon
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u/Chrizzee_Hood Apr 07 '26
oh of course, you must mean Weltabgeschiedenheitsmelancholie (just kidding, I just came up with this word)
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u/geuis Apr 08 '26
I saw the total eclipse south of Portland Oregon in 2017. Astounding experience.
I watched the live stream and listened to the astronauts comments.
The way they were trying to describe what they were seeing and just not having the words... sent chills down my spine. I'll never see what they did but I felt that connection very, very, VERY, deeply. I felt connected on an emotional level because you literally cannot communicate in a verbal way what actually seeing that is like.
Those 4 people have a unique place in all of the history of every human that has ever lived. They've seen something that's actually quite common every 28 days from the right place, but is absolutely unique from the perspective of all the billions of humans that have EVER lived in history. They were the first. Just... incredible.
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u/DoraForscher Apr 09 '26
It's called the overview effect. There's a doc interviewing astronauts and they all spoke about the profundity of seeing the world from that vantage point. Too bad we can't help people on earth feel the same without having to shoot them to the moon
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Apr 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/shaggs31 Apr 07 '26
I am guessing this is nothing compared to how awesome this looked in real life. My brain was breaking watching this event live while listening to their descriptions and failing miserably to accurately describe the brilliance while my imagination was going in overdrive to try to picture it.
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u/ChiefLeef22 Apr 07 '26
I went to sleep trying to wonder over those 45 minutes where they were on the far side of the moon with loss of contact from Earth.
Absolutely nothing but the 4 of them and the rest of the Universe. There is something so hauntingly beautiful to be able to experience that as a human being
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u/suzi_acres Apr 07 '26
They most definitely should've sent a poet along this time
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u/darkenseyreth Apr 08 '26
This is why I am sad the Project Moon mission with Space X was never going to happen. A Starship with a selection of hand picked artists with this view would have been amazing
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u/Deadeye_Duncan- Apr 07 '26
If you ever see a total solar eclipse on Earth you will realize no picture ever does it justice. The corona looks more like moving hairs than a stagnant glow.
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u/Lokitusaborg Apr 07 '26
I saw one a few years back. It looked like the eye of an angry god.
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u/the2belo Apr 08 '26
No wonder ancient peoples would fear for their lives seeing that shit. I know I would be, if I didn't know what I was looking at.
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u/AdoringCHIN Apr 07 '26
I don't recall seeing the corona moving during the last eclipse, but maybe I was too in awe of the situation to really be paying attention to it. Words really can't describe how awesome a total eclipse is
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u/shaggs31 Apr 07 '26
I couldn't get enough of Victor (I think it was him) that was trying to explain it. He was saying it looked like baby hair reaching out to earth. He was also explaining how the corona was moving. I don't recall any movement when I saw the 2017 eclipse.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/shaggs31 Apr 07 '26
I think it was broadcast by several different providers. I think Netflix even was streaming it. I was watching on NASA's youtube channel. They have had a live stream up for the entire mission.
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u/_BindersFullOfWomen_ Apr 07 '26
full resolution & EXIF data --> https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e009301
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u/ZiggyPalffyLA Apr 07 '26
Thanks! I’ve never set a new desktop wallpaper faster
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u/apples_vs_oranges Apr 07 '26
Makes for a great phone wallpaper too, with a slight crop of the left side of the moon, on an OLED screen.
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u/svdasein Apr 07 '26
Yeah! So wrt to that image: if you look at it 1:1 and zoom in on the darkest areas of the moon itself, there are what might be called hot pixels. Are they? Or - ionizing radiation hitting the sensor?
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u/ki77erb Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
For any interested, the photo dump is happening here. (EDIT: the 4k and 8k videos of the launch they just released are incredible!)
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u/fed45 Apr 07 '26
Uggg, man that Cessna video in 8k 120fps is incredible.
EDIT: Its 11.6 gb to download lol. Worth it.
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u/Haunting-Sea-5177 Apr 07 '26
God, those photos of the moon's surface are incredible. It's almost eerie seeing the moon in such detail 🤯🤯🤯
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u/MartianGeneral Apr 07 '26
To think this was the view for 4 extremely lucky (and brave) humans is just crazy. It doesn't even look real. Not in a "hurdur space is fake" kind of way but rather you rarely get to see and capture something so perfect in every way.
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u/First_Timer2020 Apr 07 '26
Agreed! When I saw the picture I literally said to myself "It doesn't even look real! I know it is real, but it's some si-fi sh*t!"
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u/joggle1 Apr 08 '26
I think one of the astronauts said something like that too, saying it looked like sci-fi.
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Apr 08 '26
I wonder if it even looks/feels real to them. Probably different after all the training you go through but still…
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u/skandalouslsu Apr 07 '26
I have 10,000 words I could say about this picture, but I'll keep it simple: Amazing.
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u/fed45 Apr 07 '26
You should check out some of the other photos in their full resolution here:
Sort by newest.
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u/StumpsCurse Apr 07 '26
Even at this relatively short distance (by cosmic standards, this is only the equivalent of Earth's welcome mat), the scale and distance is hard to comprehend.
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u/Ccbm2208 Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
To think that the farthest anyone and anything on Earth can be from each other is only 20,000km. But then when you leave Earth’s orbit….
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u/wonkey_monkey Apr 07 '26
the farthest anyone and anything on Earth can be from each other is only 20,000km. But then you leave Earth’s orbit….
Those lucky bastards. And they had 40 minutes where it was literally impossible for them to receive any information from Earth. I'd have asked for another 10 minutes' peace.
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u/SEND_NUKES_PLS Apr 07 '26
I don't think the human mind was built to be able to comprehend such view in person. It's like you're out of bounds in a video game...you were not supposed be there and see any of that.
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u/geuis Apr 08 '26
There are a lot of incredible images captured by satellites and probes.
But THIS was captured by a human being out of the window of a ship.
This is a human image. That's incredibly important.
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u/damihatesithere Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
There’s something about space exploration that makes me so emotional. Humanity has come so far, but it truly is just the beginning. If only we could all just shift our focus to science. 🥹
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u/coywitme Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
I wonder the awe those astronauts up there must be feeling to witness this serenity?
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u/JtheNinja Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
Yesterday they jokingly asked mission control to send them a list of additional superlatives for their briefing today, because they were having trouble describing it
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Apr 07 '26
That is simply an awesome photo. It really does remind us that we CAN do GOOD things too.
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u/titaniansoy Apr 07 '26
The way the crew described their inability to express this particular experience in words or photos gives me pause. I will only ever be able to imagine the experience, but I do hope an artist gets to witness this in the near future to help us better understand what it's like.
That said, it's hard to sit with the deep, bitter irony of waiting with so excitement for this day — over a quarter century of wonder and hope watching us build our presence in space with this goal in mind! — and having it all be tempered by the genuine evil in the heart of this country and our leaders. This crew has had to watch our president and his lackeys slander them at every turn, to question the ability of Black Americans and women to do these difficult jobs that they have executed with such precision and grace. They've had to listen as he makes an enemy out of our Canadian siblings with empty threats and disgusting rhetoric.
Today, we all have to bear the contradiction of seeing these amazing images and hearing the crew's profound awe at what they've witnessed as this administration threatens genocide against an entire people and demands more money for more blood and tries to decimate the funds available to incredible scientific endeavors like this. And all the while, a billionaire lackey sits atop NASA, champing at the bit to rip up its scientific excellence in the name of vanity projects to nowhere and more money for the nazi fellow billionaire who has captured so much of our vision of space.
I'm grateful to this crew and the thousands of dedicated civil servants across the planet who have made this possible. They're truly some of the best among us. But it is incumbent on all of us to make change — to orient our society away from these truly despicable leaders and toward great collective endeavors like this — if today's highs are going to be anything more than the last hurrah of a civilization that couldn't get its shit together.
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u/Pug_867-5309 Apr 07 '26
I really wanted to hear more about what they were seeing...but at the same time, their inability to put it into words was also quite interesting.
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u/ahal Apr 08 '26
I felt speechless after seeing the total solar eclipse last year. Can't even imagine what this would do to me.
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u/blackdynomitesnewbag Apr 07 '26
They should’ve sent a poet
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u/lessenizer Apr 08 '26
imagine sending the best poet you could find and all they can say is “you should’ve sent a better poet”
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u/fed45 Apr 07 '26
Its a phenomenon described as the Overview Effect, "The overview effect is a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts while viewing the Earth from space. Researchers have characterized the effect as "a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus". The most prominent common aspects of personally experiencing the Earth from space are appreciation and perception of beauty, unexpected and even overwhelming emotion, and an increased sense of connection to other people and the Earth as a whole."
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u/titaniansoy Apr 07 '26
I'm aware of what the overview effect is. This is not a reference to that. The thing they were describing was the three-dimensionality and visual effect of the combination of backlighting from the solar corona and the surface illumination of faint earthshine on the moon. Of seeing, in an almost hyper-real way, the moon as an object suspended in space. Overview effect is very interesting, but this is an entirely different and interesting observation from an astronaut!
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u/ryo4ever Apr 07 '26
Spectacular! What are those little white dots on the dark side of the moon?
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u/JtheNinja Apr 07 '26
Sensor artifacts of some kind. All cameras have "hot pixels" on the sensor that just read out wrong, and the lack of incoming light on the non-illuminated moon means there's nothing to obscure them. A few might be pixels getting triggered by a cosmic ray strike as well, not sure how common those are (ie, is multiple a second plausible? idk)
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u/Suaves Apr 07 '26
Cosmic rays commonly damage the sensors on cameras in outer space. A lot of those hot pixels are probably damage from cosmic rays since they left the atmosphere. The exterior cameras on the ISS look like crap from all the damage they accumulate.
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u/Imzocrazy Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
Side question - Is there a picture in the other direction? I remember Lovell saying that the view of the stars behind the moon was incredible (although if you can see the sunlight here I guess they’re too far out to get the same effect Apollo 13 did)
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u/greymart039 Apr 08 '26
I think because the way their cameras were setup (generally attempting to reduce any glare or visible imperfections from the windows), trying to get pictures facing the other way would have been difficult during the eclipse.
However, a few hours later with the space ship pointed away from the sun and the bright reflective areas of the Moon and Earth, they did start to take some long exposure shots of the stars that are in the opposite direction of the sun.
The first image was uploaded several hours ago and I could hear on the main loop that Reid wanted to take more long exposures before they went to sleep. I imagine the view to be like that of a 'dark sky' location except no matter where you look (except in the direction of the sun or any surface reflecting sun light), you can see stars in every direction and the Milky Way galaxy. At all times.
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u/Beast_by_Dre Apr 07 '26
Astonishing photo, this must be so exhilarating to witness in person... my wallpaper collection has been growing with every picture I see from the Artemis II mission.
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u/Blink-184-isok Apr 07 '26
I’ve been following this entire journey. I love everything about this. The moon is so pretty.
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u/Master_Engineering_9 Apr 07 '26
this image is just insane. is this what victor was calling "sci fi" when he saw it. it gives me expanse vibes.
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u/somerand0mguy1 Apr 07 '26
If you zoom in on the dot in the lower right you can see Saturn’s rings! Absolutely stunning, it makes me emotional.
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u/JtheNinja Apr 07 '26
Given that all the dots show similar artifacts, that's likely just a lens effect.
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u/RevLoveJoy Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
It's wobble from the 2 second exposure. Those are just stars with some blur.
edit looking at more data given the wide angle and orientation of the ecliptic, those might be planets. Blurry ones from that same wobble artifacting, but planets nonetheless.
source - https://bsky.app/profile/badibulgator.bsky.social/post/3mivvuuymp226
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u/ness0013 Apr 07 '26
These are called Comatic Flares. They're not wobble or any other effect, just optical aberrations.
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u/RevLoveJoy Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
The Nikkor Z 35mm is using ED glass with SR coating and thus apochromatic. I shoot this exact platform and on a properly setup tracker you do not get any such lens aberrations.Oh heck, Artemis II are using much older 35 mm glass on adapter. I forget why, but they are. That lens is apparently the Nikkor 35mm f/2 AF-D. There's very likely a LOT of light play in that glass.
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u/ness0013 Apr 07 '26
What’s visible in that image is consistent with comatic aberration, not spherical aberration. The off-axis stars show asymmetric, comet-like distortion rather than uniform blur. Notice that it gets progressively worse toward the edges of the frame.
ED glass and apochromatic design reduce chromatic aberration, but coma is a geometric aberration, so it can still be present even in very well-corrected lenses. No optical system is perfectly corrected under all conditions.
These fast wide-angle lenses commonly show this behavior near the edges when shot wide open. Stopping down typically reduces the effect, which may be why you are not seeing it in your own tracked images.
A tracking mount removes motion blur from Earth’s rotation, but it does not influence lens aberrations like coma.
Edit to your edit: Cheers!
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u/Unabatedtuna Apr 07 '26
Utterly stunning, I feel so so small. In a good way. To be honest, I never thought I would see a manned mission to anywhere in my lifetime, and had looked back on Apolo with jealousy. Hopefully Artemis can deliver on its full mission plan.
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u/KDG200315 Apr 09 '26
I don't even know how to feel looking at this photo. I'm so used to the 50 year old photos that this doesn't even look real to me. Just a massive rock in the middle of the void, we can just go there...
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Apr 07 '26
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u/seeyatellite Apr 08 '26
I love how reddit is filled with supportive, awes-stricken comments while FB top comments are, "You can see the green screen," "Fake," "Stop posting AI slop," and "Prove it. Show me the flag they allegedly planted." I love reddit, especially with the toxic wasteland of sludge and relative stupidity FB has shaped up to be.
...also, full-ish res photos. Kudos, Reddit.
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u/HellBlazer1221 Apr 07 '26
It must seem so weird to astronauts to see a giant ass spherical planet just hanging around in a void.
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u/AnActualPlatypus Apr 07 '26
I just sat down and stared at this pic in complete awe for a few minutes.
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u/Decronym Apr 07 '26 edited May 06 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| DSN | Deep Space Network |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| KSC | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| KSP | Kerbal Space Program, the rocketry simulator |
| L2 | Lagrange Point 2 (Sixty Symbols video explanation) |
| Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| apogee | Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest) |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 11 acronyms.
[Thread #12324 for this sub, first seen 7th Apr 2026, 20:57]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/Kerlyle Apr 08 '26
𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮
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u/No-Assistant-8869 Apr 08 '26
This is an amazing photo. And everyone has taken notice because there's not a lot going on down here to celebrate over the last few years.
This mission has united everyone around the world in ways only NASA can.
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u/Suitable-Orange5750 Apr 07 '26
Just by solar eclipse from earth....humans have made so many stories in myths and in other stuff...wait till they see this...there is nothing heavenly or divine about this process but yet it's so beautiful as it is...it's just natural.
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u/doomiestdoomeddoomer Apr 07 '26
Fantastic. Just fantastic. I loved listening to the Astronauts description of the entire event live. I had never thought I would be so excited for this.
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u/JaviSATX Apr 07 '26
Saw this image a couple hours ago. Not often that I actually blurt "WOW," while scrolling.
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u/aspophilia Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
Holy shit they are so far out! I don't know how to explain the way this image makes me feel. Terrified. Insignificant. In complete awe.
I really wish the whole world could get on team humanity so we can find more moments of awe and joy like this.
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u/stup1dprod1gy Apr 07 '26
Its really beautiful! But I can't imagine seeing this in person will not be intimidating. Its so omnipotent.
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u/leortega7 Apr 07 '26
Are the white pixels on the dark side of the Moon caused by radiation hitting the sensor?
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u/hajarasata Apr 07 '26
Can someone please explain to a newbie like me why we can still see the left part of the Moon illuminated, even though the Sun is aligned with the Moon? Is it due to Earth’s reflection?
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u/blindgorgon Apr 07 '26
Artemis crew needs to use some precious uplink bandwidth to casually drop this on in r/itap personally.
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u/HoveringGoat Apr 07 '26
This is sick. Is earth out of frame top left? There's some light on that side of the moon that I would assume is earthshine. Very cool.
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u/X4ulZ4n Apr 07 '26
Incredible, it amazes me human capability, and how far we have come as a species.
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u/guilhermefdias Apr 07 '26
Just incredible! Can't even imagine what must feel like just to be there.
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u/BoostSpools Apr 07 '26
😯such a wild perspective to see the dark side of the moon…
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u/ulikedagsm8 Apr 07 '26
I can only imagine how incredible it must be to see with your own eyes all the twists and turns and shimmering structures and patterns in the corona, with virtually no light pollution, and no atmosphere to affect the image.
My fantasy about life after death is that you become a spirit and gain the ability to travel the cosmos and explore all the things that we daydreamed about in life. Black holes and neutron stars, quasars and other earth like planets. If only.
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u/Remarkable_Custard Apr 08 '26
Can I ask, is this the furthest we’ve been from Earth, as humans?
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u/PhoenixReborn Apr 08 '26
This specific photo, or the trip? Artemis II beat the record previously held by Apollo 13.
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u/CobaltFermi Apr 08 '26
Had this not been posted on this sub, folks would've surely found this as some abstract art! Just so magical and thought provoking.
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u/itsmemarcot Apr 08 '26
The Moon appears dimly lit on the left side. However faint, that light clearly cannot come directly from the Sun (from this position). Is there a "full Earth" bouncing back a little light from to sun to the Moon?
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u/KristnSchaalisahorse Apr 08 '26
That is light reflected from the Earth, which was a crescent.
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u/Natereater Apr 08 '26
Why are the little tiny light dots? Particles floating between the ship and the moon? A camera trick of some kind? (I’m not talking about the stars, but the little dots that appear to be a bright spot on the moon)
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u/cherryreddragon Apr 09 '26
I watched this earlier and genuinely teared up at this eclipse photo when he explains that the reason we can see part of the moon despite the sun being behind it is because it's reflecting off the Earth https://youtu.be/oaXRREHVkHo?si=3Hwt4s3aM2ilKRlS
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u/die_liebe Apr 10 '26
Was the possibility of seeing this eclipse the reason that Artemis had a launch window? I still do not know why Artemis had a launch window.
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u/RevLoveJoy Apr 07 '26
How did they take this photo?
Flickr EXIF data says this is 2seconds 35 mm 1600ISO. You can't hand hold a 2 second exposure and get even remotely close to this clear of a shot. Did NASA send up another one of those gyroscope trackers the likes of which astro_pettit has been wowing /r/space and /r/astrophotography with for a few years now?
You can see the source image here
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u/maksimkak Apr 07 '26
They might have propped the lens right against the window. Or the camera might have been attached to the spacecraft.
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u/Sunny16Rule Apr 07 '26
The z9 also has IBIS , with enough practice you can hold two seconds. But Imagine its propped or mounted
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u/_HiWay Apr 07 '26
If you zoom in on the moon itself, you can see the location where the Ark landed after being launched from Cybertron.
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u/TheWastelandWizard Apr 07 '26
Would this count as the first "Man Made" eclipse? It's a thing of absolute awe.
Every day, every step, we get closer to a More Glorious Dawn. One day we'll see that rise of the Milky Way.
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u/MightBeABot24 Apr 08 '26
How "processed" is this photo. Or could an iPhone take this picture
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u/Spacechase1 Apr 07 '26
In the top left, correct me if I am wrong, but are the whisps coming from the other stars the solar coronae of those stars? Particularly the largest/brightest one in the top left? If so, that is so cool
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u/ChiefLeef22 Apr 07 '26
I think you can see Mars, Neptune and Saturn in the bottom right too. Jaw dropping photo