The Earth from another perspective
The Orion ship is already on its way. This Wednesday it took off from Florida powered by the SLS rocket, marking the official start of the Artemis II mission. A historic journey that is just beginning.
A few days after leaving orbit, NASA shared the first photos taken by the crew from inside the capsule. Two images that show our planet in all its blue and brown immensity.
An inevitable comparison
Social networks immediately did their thing: comparing these new photos with the photo. The iconic “Blue Marble” taken by the Apollo 17 mission almost 54 years ago, in December 1972.
The Apollo 17 photograph shows a panoramic view of the Earth’s disk, captured while the astronauts were heading towards the Moon, about 40 thousand kilometers from Earth.
That historic image showed all of Africa, much of Antarctica covered in ice, and portions of Europe and Asia. The deserts of the Sahara, Libya and Arabia appeared as brown masses, while a dark strip crossed the African continent: the savannahs.
Now we have new perspectives. The photo shared this Friday was captured by Commander Reid Wiseman after completing the translunar injection maneuver. They called it “Hello World.”
In it you can see Australia and something extraordinary: two northern lights. One at the top right with greenish flashes, another at the bottom left with bluish tones. Also visible: the zodiacal light.
Behind the scenes there is evolved technology. While Apollo 17 used a Hasselblad modified with Kodak Ektachrome film, Artemis II carries two Nikon D5 digital SLR cameras according to David Melendrez, head of image integration at NASA.
The mission continues. Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen (from the Canadian Space Agency) will make this round trip that will last less than 10 days. But they have already given us new cosmic postcards.
