People Spotted Some Amaaazing Things In The First Artemis II Pictures Of Earth

Posted 10 hours ago

The crew of Artemis II is officially on their way to the Moon.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted that the "nominal translunar injection burn" was complete and that they were full speed ahead.

FWIW, according to the official Artemis account, this means "The Orion spacecraft recently ignited its main engine on the service module for about six minutes to provide about 6,000 pounds of thrust. This maneuver sets the Artemis II astronauts on the path to the Moon."

So, now for the goods. The crew shared two new images of Earth taken from the spaceship.

Here's one:

And here's a better look:

As NASA's Johnson Space Center said, "Not a bad view to start the day."

The crew also dropped this picture of Earth, and people are noticing some pretty cool things!

First off, this is a "night side photo," so it's essentially what earth looks like at night:

As astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy said, "I don't think we've ever seen Earth at night photographed quite like this."

Secondly, those appear to be the northern lights:

Third, that appears to be part of Spain, Portugal, and Africa:

Fourth, that's the outline of the window right there:

And lastly, the pictures show just how thin our atmosphere is:

Wild.

There's only one way to describe it: "Unreal."

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