A Moonlit Earth Seen From Artemis II

One of the first images from the Artemis II mission shows Earth’s full disk amid a host of solar system features. An astronaut aboard the Orion spacecraft took the photo after the translunar injection burn, and although the visible hemisphere looks sunlit, it is illuminated by moonlight.

From Orion’s perspective Earth eclipses the Sun, leaving a small bright sliver around the lower right edge. Green auroras glow around the north and south poles (lower left and upper right), and a fuzzy band of zodiacal light appears to the lower right; data from Juno suggest Mars may be a notable source of the interplanetary dust that produces that glow.

Venus appears as the bright object at the lower right of the frame. City lights reveal human activity on the night side: bright areas show Spain, Portugal, and northern Africa (lower left), sub‑Saharan Africa (center left), and Brazil (center right). Digital camera settings helped—crew members set the ISO to 51,200 to capture low‑light details, compared with daytime settings around ISO 100 or 200.

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