Watch: Artemis 1 moon mission's spacecraft Orion captures Earthrise
In the video shared by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) the Earth can be seen rising from behind the shadowed surface of the Moon. It is captured through a camera installed on the tip of one of Orion's solar arrays.
"The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on earth," Command Module Pilot Jim Lovel who was onboard Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, said after watching earth rise from moon.
Five decades later, the Orion spacecraft which is part of Artemis moon mission that aims to place human on our natural satellite again, has captured the pleasant view of Earthrise from the vicinity of moon.
In the video shared by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) the earth can be seen rising from behind the shadowed surface of the moon. It is captured through a camera installed on the tip of one of Orion's solar arrays.
Launched on November 16, the Orion spacecraft had successfully executed the Outbound Powered Flyby exercise, which took it within 80 miles of the lunar surface, the closest approach of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, before going into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon.
Nasa informed the spacecraft will exit the gravitational pull of the moon at 11:31 pm ET today (10:01 am IST tomorrow) and proceed traveling toward distant retrograde orbit.
What is Earthrise?
Earthrise is a image/video of earth taken from the moon or from the vicinity of moon in this case. It shows earth in the background of moon’s surface.
History of Earthrise
Back in 1966, the world got to see the first view of Earth from the side of the Moon. The black & white hazy picture relayed to earth by Lunar Orbiter I became a reminder of how far humanity had developed in such a brief time.
The Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft captured the image in its 16th orbit and transferred it to the NASA tracking station at Robledo De Chavela near Madrid, Spain. Notably, it was not a planned photoshoot but came accidentally while the space probe was on another assigned mission.