Orion flies far beyond the Moon, returns an instantly iconic photo

[smp]

From Ars Technica:
"NASA's Orion spacecraft reached the farthest outbound point in its journey from Earth on Monday, a distance of more than 430,000 km from humanity's home world. This is nearly double the distance between Earth and the Moon and is farther than the Apollo capsule traveled during NASA's lunar missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

From this vantage point, on Monday, a camera attached to the solar panels on board Orion's service module snapped photos of the Moon and, just beyond, the Earth. These were lovely, lonely, and evocative images."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11 ... nic-photo/

WOW!

smp

[KathyNS]

I think it is kind of fun that NASA rigged the camera to take each photo as a selfie.

Just wait for the flat-earthers to complain about the relative sizes of the Moon and Earth in the photo.

[Unitron48]

Great image! Needs to be our APOD!

Surely NASA is a member of TSS.

Dave

[John Donne]

Beautiful photo of our Beautiful home !

[Bigzmey]

Great shot indeed!

[Ylem]

Wow is right!

Beautiful photo, and glad the mission is going well!

[seigell]

Nice Image - unique perspective...
I'm still hoping for an Orion Selfie during the Lunar Gravity Assist.
I looked for one after the Outbound Maneuver, but none were posted.

I mean its not like the Orion should be lacking for CPU Power (actually the Camera should be on a Remote Bus - just schedule the shot and wait), and the Camera is affixed to the extended Solar Wing.
How hard can it be?? Sheesh... ;^)

[seigell]

Just wait for the flat-earthers to complain about the relative sizes of the Moon and Earth in the photo.

Just wait for someone to decide that the NASA Logo can be replaced with Sponsorship...