Earthset
Photograph of Earth from the Artemis II mission
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Earthset is a photograph of a crescent Earth taken by astronaut Reid Wiseman on April 6, 2026, at 22:41 UTC during the Artemis II crew's flyby of the Moon. It is similar to Earthrise, a 1968 photograph by William Anders of Apollo 8 in which Earth appears to rise above the Moon's horizon during lunar orbit.[1][2] Wiseman captured the image using a Nikon D5 camera.[a][3]
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Details
The image shows Earth setting behind the cratered lunar surface, with the planet's night side in darkness, and sunlit cloud systems visible over the Australia and Oceania region. In the foreground the Ohm crater is visible, characterized by terraced edges and a relatively flat floor interrupted by central peaks, which form when the lunar surface, temporarily liquefied during impact, rebounds upward during crater formation.[3]
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Chocolate hue of the lunar surface
The curious brownish coloration of the lunar surface, which is frequently seen in orbital photographs of the Moon with Earth's light bluish colored crescent in the background, is mentioned in the article "To the Mountains of the Moon" (Apollo 15) by Kenneth F. Weaver, in the February 1972 issue of National Geographic, pages 255–257. It is also seen in Carl Sagan's book Cosmos (1980), Chapter 4: '"Heaven and Hell", page 84: orbital lunar photograph AS12-47-6890 (Magazine V), made during the mission of Apollo 12 in November 1969, showing the region of the northwestern section of crater Pasteur, on the eastern part of the Moon's farside.
A comparable photograph to Artemis II's Earthset is seen in Harrison H. Schmitt's article "Exploring Taurus-Littrow" (Apollo 17), on page 307 in the September 1973 issue of National Geographic.
See also
- First images of Earth from space
- List of notable images of Earth from space
- Hello, World, another photograph by Reid Wiseman from the Artemis II mission, taken on April 3, 2026
- Earthrise, a December 24, 1968, photograph by William Anders from the Apollo 8 mission
- Astronaut photo
Notes
- The image metadata indicates that it was taken using a Nikon D5 camera with an 80–400 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens at a focal length of 400 mm, an aperture of f/8, an exposure time of 1/1000 second, and an ISO setting of 400; the image was later processed using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic.
