NASA's pioneering spaceship snaps stunning view of the moon orbiting Earth

mashable ^ | November 28, 2022 | Mark Kaufman on

[BenLurkin]

The spacecraft's current orbit around the moon, called "distant retrograde orbit," put Orion in position to view Earth and its satellite from a rare vantage point. In this orbit, the spacecraft is flying some 40,000 miles above the lunar surface, enabling it to at times "look back" at our natural satellite and beyond.

Orion is actually beaming back a livestream of the Artemis I mission, which you can watch on this link from NASA. (At times, however, the moon moves between Earth and the spacecraft, which temporarily cuts off your cosmic livestreaming service.)

[BenLurkin]

Cover your beebers.

[DannyTN]

Cameras on stune!

[Rurudyne]

Wow. You can’t even see the strings!

[maddog55]

40k mile orbit above the moon.. that’s pretty significant.

[Secret Agent Man]

Moon just doesn’t look right in the photo.

[Safrguns]

Yeah... looks like a couple of FLAT cookies to me! (not)

[CJ Wolf]

Interesting that the live feed is cut on the back side of the moon. In this day and age.

[gundog]

You’ve never seen that side.

[DarrellZero]

That’s no moon!

[Secret Agent Man]

Theres no detail at all, vs some detail in the earth futher behind it.

[TheConservativeTejano]

Great pics!

[gundog]

Resolution is pretty poor.

[telescope115]

They both look blurry. A darker “maria” is visible on the lighter half.

[bantam]

Well they got the shadows to all be at the same angle!

[Robe]

My iPhone takes better pics that that!

[Tucker39]

Why does the moon appear to be larger than Earth?

[Romulus]

I can’t imagine.

[Zuriel]

Nasuh: ok, SAM, you caught us using CGI.

[Zuriel]

**Why does the moon appear to be larger than Earth?**

Perspective. Like a golf ball at 3 feet away, and a basketball 300 feet away.