The Artemis 2 mission gifted us with another iconic Blue Marble image to join the gallery of NASA’s most famous photos. It shows not Earthrise, but Earthset, as Artemis was heading into its transit of the far side of the Moon on April 7, 2026. This photo was taken minutes before their view of Earth was blocked by the Moon.
The image was captured using a Nikon D5 DSLR — selected for its high performance and reliability in extreme environments. Artemis was approximately 252,756 miles from Earth at the time. The photo was taken by Commander Reid Wiseman. Approximately 15% of Earth’s surface is illuminated in the photo. The part that isn’t is the night side of Earth. Note the gradual change from day to night. That’s the strip of dusk/dawn made possible by our atmosphere’s tendency to scatter light. It’s where our colorful sunsets and sunrises form. Dusk and dawn don’t happen on the airless Moon … when the Sun drops below the lunar horizon, it’s like turning off a light switch.
You see mostly blue water and white clouds on Earth’s surface, but if you look closely you’ll also see some greens and browns. The clouds move slowly, kinda’ like the hour hand of a clock, but you do notice it over time. And then there’s the overview effect — you don’t see any national boundaries, or the artificial colors that we have on our globes. The sense that “we’re all in this together” becomes profound and, for some, a spiritual and transcendent experience that changes them. Seeing the colorful Earth hanging there in an infinite expanse of blackness reminds us how special it is.
Of course, all those things were said during the early days of the space program, when mankind first ventured beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The Apollo 8 mission to the Moon back in 1968 captured the now-famous Earthrise photo from lunar orbit:
That photo was taken from our first crewed spacecraft to orbit the Moon. It was captured on December 24th, 1968 from a distance roughly 240,000 miles from Earth. Over 50% of the Earth is illuminated here, compared to the 15% Artemis image, so you can see more of the features I commented on earlier. Alas, the photographic medium back then was still analog film with a resolution one fifth that of a Nikon D5. You can see that difference when you compare the two images.
Earthrise photographer, Lunar Module Pilot William Anders, used a Hasselblad 500EL 70 mm with a Zeiss Sonnar 250 mm f/5.6 lens. The film was Kodak Ektachrome SO-368 medium speed, ASA 64, color reversal. Interestingly, this was not a planned photo. As they swung around the Moon, they knew Earth was going to be rising, but it wasn’t until they recognized the photo op that he decided to capture it.
So Anders scrambled to swap out the B&W film they had in the camera with a roll of color film they’d brought along. They were expecting to mostly be shooting photos of the Moon, which they did, and at the time B&W film had a higher grain resolution. Given that the Moon is mostly grayscale, B&W was loaded by default. By the time they got the film swapped, Earth had risen considerably above the horizon. So perhaps the image should instead be dubbed “Earthrisen”? The Hasselblad is an excellent camera, still, you can easily see the resolution difference between Artemis digital and Apollo analog.
You may wonder, as I did, if Artemis ever got an actual Earthrise image. Turns out they did, but it didn’t get nearly as much media coverage as Earthset. You can find it, and others, buried in the NASA media archives at: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-ii-multimedia/. Here’s the Artemis Earthrise image:
You can see why it didn’t get much coverage. There’s less of Earth illuminated, and a third of that is blocked by the moon’s silhouette. I would have liked the shot delayed a bit more and let the whole Earth rise, catching it just above the Moon and possibly getting some earthshine on the lunar surface. Because of the position of the Sun, the lunar landscape is in total darkness so no craters or mountains are visible, but could have been with earthshine. Given the constraints, this was their interpretation of “Earthrise” and I like it as is. It’s not same perspective as Apollo 8 but that’s exactly the point — more perspectives help scientists to interpret, analyze, and generalize.
Next Week in Sky Lights ⇒ Star Brightness Variations and Illusory 3D Perception