The Artemis II crew snapped some mesmerizing photos of Earth

On their way around the Moon , the Artemis II crew had time to snap some terrific pictures of our blue planet. NASA has begun sharing the images, including the one above, which shows a striking view of Earth through the Orion capsule's window. Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman overcame the crew’s problems with Microsoft Outlook and the toilet to capture the photos. He took the above pic after the craft completed its translunar injection burn on April 2. Reid Wiseman / NASA Meanwhile, this second photo trades clever composition for a full-on view of our planet. If you look carefully, you can see two auroras: one on the top right and another on the bottom left. Easier to spot is the diffuse glow of zodiacal light (bottom right) as the Earth eclipses the Sun. At the time of publication, Artemis II is over 105,000 miles from Earth. The 10-day journey will have the crew of four looping around the Moon and back again. Serving largely as a test run for future deep space travel, the mission is NASA's first to the Moon since the Apollo program. However, the crew won't be landing this time; that will have to wait for Artemis IV, currently planned for 2028 . Reid Wiseman / NASA This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/the-artemis-ii-crew-snapped-some-mesmerizing-photos-of-earth-183610493.html?src=rss

6 April 2026 at 07:47 pm

1 views

The Artemis II crew snapped some mesmerizing photos of Earth

On their journey around the Moon, the Artemis II crew has captured mesmerizing photos of Earth, offering a unique perspective from deep space. NASA has begun sharing these images, which showcase the stunning beauty of our planet from the Orion capsule's window. The crew's mission, serving as a test run for future deep space travel, is NASA's first trip to the Moon since the Apollo program.

Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman played a crucial role in capturing these photos. Despite encountering challenges with Microsoft Outlook and the toilet, Wiseman managed to focus on documenting the mission's progress. One of the most striking images was taken after the spacecraft completed its translunar injection burn on April 2. This photo showcases a breathtaking view of Earth, highlighting the vastness of space and the delicate balance of our planet in the cosmos.

Another remarkable photo offers a full-on view of Earth, showcasing clever composition and intricate details. Careful observers can spot two auroras in the image: one on the top right and another on the bottom left. Additionally, the diffuse glow of zodiacal light is visible in the bottom right, as Earth eclipses the Sun. These auroras and the zodiacal light add a surreal touch to the image, emphasizing the ethereal beauty of our home planet from this unique vantage point.

As of the time of publication, Artemis II is over 105,000 miles from Earth, embarking on a 10-day journey to loop around the Moon and return. The crew of four is on a mission to test the Orion spacecraft and associated systems, paving the way for future deep space exploration. This voyage marks a significant milestone in space travel, as it represents NASA's first mission to the Moon since the Apollo program concluded decades ago.

While the Artemis II crew is not scheduled to land on the Moon during this mission, the photos they've captured serve as a powerful reminder of the potential for future exploration. The mission's success lays the groundwork for Artemis IV, currently planned for 2028, which aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface once again. These stunning images not only celebrate the achievements of the Artemis II crew but also inspire a renewed sense of wonder and curiosity about the universe and our place within it.

The Artemis II mission is more than just a test run for future space travel; it is a reminder of humanity's capacity to explore, discover, and marvel at the wonders of the cosmos. As the crew continues on their journey around the Moon, the photos they've captured offer a glimpse into the awe-inspiring beauty of our planet from a distance that few have ever witnessed. These images will undoubtedly be cherished as symbols of human ingenuity and the boundless potential of space exploration.

Source: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

The largest orbital compute cluster is open for business | TechCrunch

Kepler Communications is flying 40 GPUs in Earth orbit. And its latest customer is Sophia Space.

14 Apr

‘Mideast conflict poses risks to Philippines growth’

The Philippine economy is expected to grow at a faster pace of 5.3 percent this year from last year’s 4.4 percent but the ongoing Middle East conflict is seen to pose risks, according to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus 3 Macroeconomic Research Office.

7 Apr

AFBI welcomes DUP representatives to its research farm at Hillsborough

The Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) welcomed a number of DUP representatives to its research farm at Hillsborough on Friday.

7 Apr

A simple way to get more value from metrics

We spent one day 1 building a system that immediately found a mid 7 figure optimization (which ended up shipping). In the first year, we shipped mid 8 figures per year worth of cost savings as a result. The key feature this system introduces is the ability to query metrics data across all hosts and all services and over any period of time (since inception), so we've called it LongTermMetrics (LTM) internally since I like boring, descriptive, names. This got started when I was looking for a starter project that would both help me understand the Twitter infra stack and also have some easily quantifiable value. Andy Wilcox suggested looking at JVM survivor space utilization for some large services. If you're not familiar with what survivor space is, you can think of it as a configurable, fixed-size buffer, in the JVM (at least if you use the GC algorithm that's default at Twitter). At the time, if you looked at a random large services, you'd usually find that either: The buffer was too small, resulting in poor performance, sometimes catastrophically poor when under high load. The buffer was too large, resulting in wasted memory, i.e., wasted money. But instead of looking at random services, there's no fundamental reason that we shouldn't be able to query all services and get a list of which services have room for improvement in their configuration, sorted by performance degradation or cost savings. And if we write that query for JVM survivor space, this also

7 Apr

Accelerating Mathematical and Scientific Discovery with Gemini Deep Think

Research papers point to the growing impact of Deep Think across fields

7 Apr

Gemini 3 Deep Think: Advancing science, research and engineering

Our most specialized reasoning mode is now updated to solve modern science, research and engineering challenges.

7 Apr

Context Engineering for Coding Agents

The number of options we have to configure and enrich a coding agent’s context has exploded over the past few months. Claude Code is leading the charge with innovations in this space, but other coding assistants are quickly following suit. Powerful context engineering is becoming a huge part of the developer experience of these tools. Birgitta Böckeler explains the current state of context configuration features, using Claude Code as an example. more…

7 Apr

What does less protein and nitrogen mean for methane?

Does feeding less protein to cows over a longer period not only reduce nitrogen losses, but also affect methane emissions? Researchers at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) investigated this in a multi-year study with dairy cows, funded by the Vereniging Diervoederonderzoek Nederland (VDN), the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN), and […] The post What does less protein and nitrogen mean for methane? appeared first on Agriland.ie .

7 Apr

Second’s Bark Boasts New era of Bitcoin Payments, drawing in former Blockstream developers

Bitcoin Magazine Second’s Bark Boasts New era of Bitcoin Payments, drawing in former Blockstream developers Second, the Bitcoin development lab founded by ex-Blockstream executives including CEO Steven Roose and CTO Erik De Smedt, has unveiled Bark — its custom Ark protocol implementation promising self-custodial payments that are faster and cheaper than Lightning channels. This post Second’s Bark Boasts New era of Bitcoin Payments, drawing in former Blockstream developers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt .

7 Apr

'Morale boost': Nasa carries out Moon mission during tough year for science

HOUSTON — As the four Artemis astronauts approached a high point of their lunar mission -- getting slung around the far side of the Moon -- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) staffers crowded into Houston's famed mission control room Monday for a team photo.

7 Apr