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| 'That is something we have never seen before': Artemis II crew describe far side of Moon (Image: BBC) |
Nasa is releasing a steady stream of stunning pictures of the Moon and Earth taken by the astronauts on its Artemis II Moon mission.
READ MORE: High above Earth, Artemis II crew prepare to thrust on to the Moon
Attracting millions of likes on social media, the images show the two bodies from unusual angles in glorious high definition.
The drama is undeniable: four astronauts are about to set out on a journey that will take them further from Earth than any human has gone since 1972. But is there unique scientific value in these images, or are these simply the equivalent of holiday photos?
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| Astronaut Christina Koch watching Earth from the Orion spacecraft (image taken with iPhone 17 Pro Max) (Image: NASA) |
Nasa wants the American public behind them to support the mission. The four astronauts are describing their progress in triumphant tones in regular video updates as they live-stream the 10-day journey. According to Nasa, the crew was so excited to watch the world and the Moon go by that the Orion spacecraft's window got dirty, and the astronauts were given instructions on how to clean it. This is the first time that digital cameras have been taken this far into space.
There are 32 cameras and devices on Orion, 15 of which are attached to the spacecraft and 17 are carried by the crew. According to Nasa, the astronauts are using standard 10-year-old cameras, including the Nikon D5, as well as GoPros and smartphones.
You can even find the device used to take each of the published photos in Nasa's Flickr photostream. We received the initial findings from their in-depth observations on Friday. When the mission was approximately equidistant from Earth and the Moon, or 142,000 miles (228,500 kilometers) from Earth and 132,000 miles from the Moon, Commander Reid Wiseman sang "Hello, World." It shows two auroras as the Earth eclipses the Sun, and the planet Venus glowing at the bottom of the image.
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| Our planet appears upside down, with the Sahara desert and the Iberian peninsula visible to the left and the eastern portion of South America to the right.(Image: NASA/Reid Wiseman) |
The Sahara desert and the Iberian peninsula can be seen on the left, and the eastern part of South America can be seen on the right. It's a lovely picture, but nothing new when it comes to science.
In point of fact, Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (Epic) is a camera on Nasa's Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite. It was launched in 2015 and regularly takes pictures of Earth from close to a million miles away, which is a lot farther away than Artemis II. The following day, on Saturday, Nasa put out a second picture with the caption "history in the making." It depicts the enormous Orientale basin, a crater on the opposite side of the Moon with a thicker crust and numerous additional impact craters. It has been made public ahead of Monday's lunar flyby, when the crew will fly around this enigmatic far side and come within 4,066 miles of the surface.
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| A picture taken on day 4 of Artemis mission showing the Orientale basin on the right edge of the lunar disk (Image: NASA) |
"The first time the entire basin has been seen with human eyes," Nasa said of its image. Even Apollo astronauts didn't see the Orientale basin completely because of their orbit and illumination conditions.
Nasa is emphasising the significance of human eyes rather than robotic explorers.
"Human eyes and brains are highly sensitive to subtle changes in colour, texture, and other surface characteristics," it says.
"Uncover new discoveries and a more nuanced appreciation for the features on the surface of the Moon," it says, "could emerge from this." I sought his opinion from Chris Lintott, co-host of the BBC series The Sky at Night and Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford. He stated, "The value of the images returned by Artemis and its crew is artistic, not scientific." He explained that since the Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s, robotic explorers have mapped the far side of the Moon.
India sent the Chandrayaan-3 space probe in 2023, which took precise photographs of the same terrain.
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| A photo of the moon's far side captured in 2023 by a camera on India's Chandrayaan-3 probe (Image: ISRO) |
And in 2024, China's Chang'e-6 mission collected the first-ever samples from the far side. In 2019, China launched its first ever probe in the region.
"Unless something very unusual happens, there will be nothing for the [Artemis] astronauts to discover," Lintott says.
He stated, "If a meteor hits the dark side, there's a possibility they might see an impact flash, but it would have to be pretty big." "For science they would need to do a systematic count [of it], best done with a video camera, not looking out the window," he explained.
"The images that astronauts, not robots, took back are stunning, beautiful, and iconic. This is a voyage of exploration, not lunar science and that's fine!" He stated. When releasing these images, Nasa is pushing the scientific importance of this mission, but as journalists, we are asked to look at all the facts around a story.
China and the United States of America are locked in a space race to become the first nation to send humans back to the Moon. For the time being, a successful Artemis II mission would indicate that the United States has taken the lead. Additionally, this is a significant opportunity for Nasa to impress President Donald Trump, who has eliminated funding for numerous scientific institutions. The agency is also under pressure to prove its worth at a time when private operators such as SpaceX are raising the bar.
While inquiry and evidence are the driving forces behind science, politics are always present.
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| The iconic Earthrise photo taken in 1968 (Image: Getty Images) |
When astronaut Bill Anders took the now-famous photograph Earthrise in 1968, he made history. Taken from close to the lunar surface, it showed our planet rising in the distance.
It made Earth look vulnerable, and at a time of global division and tension during the Cold War, it reminded many viewers that we share this one planet.
Nasa will be hoping that Artemis II delivers a moment of comparable resonance, as it demonstrated how a powerful image can write history. Let's take in the beautiful images and ride of the astronauts in the interim.
Source: BBC
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