It is odd to me as well. At least this one is not by islamic or chinese photographers which is what the NASA “Outreach” program has favored recently. This outreach was implemented by barak hussein 0.
APOD and others in this realm are very woke and or leftist. Nearly always they choose images/subjects from foreign sources. I see amateur work weekly that beats many of the images they peddle.
Of course it’s a Government/NASA/university affiliate so that explains a lot.