Lunar Flyby

ranger207

I have to admit, I've been an Artemis hater ($4 billion per launch lol) but the experience of watching people go back around the Moon has been incredibly inspiring, and it proves to me that maybe we can still do hard things

ge96

Wonder how it feels after being out there, seeing that, then coming back like alright back in the system I go.

_august

Are full size/larger images available somewhere? 1920x1280px seems low. Edit: Found 'em: https://images.nasa.gov/search?page=1&media=image&yearStart=...

drfloyd51

The solar eclipse pictures are absolutely beautiful.

sph

I shared some of these pictures with family members that hadn’t even heard of Artemis, and one asked if the blue thing was Mars. I am shook.

cruffle_duffle

These things are so damn cool!

jflessau

Just wanted to say how moving I find these pictures. Proof of what humanity is capable of :)

suzzer99

I hope they listened to Dark Side of the Moon on the flyby.

Almondsetat

We're so not accustomed to moon pictures taken with "normal" cameras. These almost look like 3D renders to me, it's incredible

madrox

There is something uncanny about the bandwidth and quality of all the artifacts coming from this mission. I've subsisted on photos from the Apollo missions and artistic renditions for so long that seeing the modern, high resolution real thing to be quite stirring in a way I didn't expect. It actually does make me believe that the future could be quite cool.

LorenDB

I think my favorite of all these images is https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009287/ . The sheer size difference, while simply a trick of perspective, makes Earth feel tiny and insignificant.

dylan604

I listened to pretty much the entire fly by yesterday, and I was imagining how I would have spent my time at the windows with a camera. Listening to the comms made me think of that episode from From The Earth to the Moon where they take the astronauts out and give them geology lessons so they could be more productive with their descriptions. I was also very curious of their descriptions during the eclipse where the Earth shine was lighting up the dark side of the moon to such a surreal look they couldn't really describe it. They were even commenting that they didn't feel the photos being taken were doing it justice either. I also was wondering if they will make any modifications to the capsule since covering a window to block the Earth shine caused concern on the ground from some of the readings they were getting. Assuming it was overheating as they redirected air flow to the window. Then again, the following missions won't be so concerned with a single fly by so probably not something they'll address.

wishfish

Zoomed into several of the lunar surface photos and noticed some of the very small impact craters are in a regularly spaced straight line. Looks to me as if a meteorite came in at a shallow angle and basically skipped across the surface. Leaving dimpled craters as it bounced. Looks very similar to rocks skipping on a pond. Am I correct or is there another explanation for these?

balajeekalyan

Really cool! Artemis III will be even more breathtaking I think https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/

joemi

I started rewatching For All Mankind a week or so before the Artemis II launch, so it's been pretty wild to watch an alt-history about people going to and settling on the Moon and Mars, and then to see real life people just starting to return to the Moon at the same time.

PedroBatista

Very cool pictures, especially those ones backlit by the Sun are something new. ie real photos that we usually only see in sci-fi games or movies. But the real question is: Who of those 4 clogged up the toilet? That's what the public demands to know.

aosaigh

I cannot fathom what it must be like to witness this in-person. The pictures are spectacular but to spend time experiencing it outside the window in your proximity must be overwhelming in the most incredible way.

SegfaultSeagull

Can someone ELI5 how it is one side of the moon is never seen on Earth? The moon orbits and also rotates, does it not?

irickt

This is the best animation of the trajectory I've seen: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260406.html

matheusmoreira

https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e009286 Stunning!