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Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moon [video]
- islandbytes 7mo agoIncredible achievement but I'll be honest — if you showed me this photo without context I would have no idea it was the far side. Just looks like the Moon. Also didn't realize we could capture an image like this in what I assumed was total darkness.
- BigTTYGothGF 7mo agoThat's because it's the near side, not the far side.
- ufo 7mo agoThere's a little bit of far side on the right of the picture.
- andyjohnson0 7mo ago> Just looks like the Moon. It is the moon. > Also didn't realize we could capture an image like this in what I assumed was total darkness. The "Dark Side of the Moon" is a misnomer. It gets as much light as the side we can see.
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- cybermango 7mo agoThey have live tracker you can follow https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/
- jedberg 7mo agoI've been using this one: https://issinfo.net/artemis.html https://issinfo.net/artemis.html Better information density.
- jleyank 7mo agoI'm going to be VERY disappointed if there's no Pink Floyd music or commentary from the Artemis mission. Particularly now. Life's short, and one can't be serious all the time... Wallis and Gromit would be a partial substitute, but the boomers are still around.
- workfromspace 7mo agoI wish the crew quoted "there is no dark side of the moon really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark."
- syncsynchalt 7mo agoIt's true, too. Lunar albedo is 12%. https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/08/05/nasa-releases-a-gif-of-the-moon-passing-in-front-of-earth https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/08/05/nasa-releases-a-gif-...
- mynegation 7mo agoAbsolutely. Last year we went to Italy and I played “The Count of Tuscany” in the car while driving in Chianti region. My wife does not really enjoy Dream Theater but that was in the rider for the Italy trip :-)
- kklisura 7mo agoSomething in a style of Chris Hadfield [1]. That would be great! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo
- mlfreeman 7mo agoAlso don't forget about working in "That's no moon. It's a space station." somewhere.
- notorandit 7mo agoFar side != Dark side
- sneak 7mo agoIt’s approximately the dark side when the moon is full, which happened two days ago.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- dust42 7mo ago> It’s approximately the dark side when the moon is full, which happened two days ago. Who downvotes that? It is true. Edit: maybe you can illuminate why you downvote?
- y1n0 7mo agoI'm sure it's the flat-mooners downvoting.
- notorandit 7mo agoThe moon IS flat! Just like the Sun and the Earth.
- WorkerBee28474 7mo agoWell, the Moon, Sun, and Earth are all flatter than most surfaces in my house, and I call those surfaces flat, so yeah...
- raverbashing 7mo agoYes and (IIRC) they don't want to flyby while at full moon on the far side as to have some shadows to help differentiate the terrain
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- nasretdinov 7mo agoI like how most people's reactions at this point are "yeah, whatever", as if it's every day that humans observe the far side of the moon with a naked eye through a window :). We do know what it looks like and we have photos from the surface, yes, but seeing the reaction from real people who're actually there does hit different, at least for me
- izzydata 7mo agoPeople are struggling to afford every day life and we are surrounding by crazy things every day like cellphones talking to satellites in space. On any objective measure it is definitely amazing to send humans to the moon, but there are more pressing issues for most people right now. If we as a species had more of our ducks in a row we may be able to better celebrate this as the achievement for humankind that it is.
- wat10000 7mo ago1969 wasn’t exactly all flowers and sunshine either.
- whateveracct 7mo ago[flagged]
- Bnjoroge 7mo agothe hell does that have to do with anything
- philipallstar 7mo agoThey could've employed the astronauts to be waiters in Africa.
- whateveracct 7mo agothe comment i'm replying to is saying that the moon mission is morally dubious because we haven't solved domestic poverty
- majkinetor 7mo agoFYI: https://issinfo.net/artemis https://issinfo.net/artemis
- rcpt 7mo agoOh man 10-day long airplane ride. No thanks.
- encom 7mo agoThat site absolutely murders my CPU by... drawing vector graphics. This one displays basically the same info and is made by someone competent: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/
- majkinetor 7mo agoIts the opposite for me. NASA site is unusable for me in Firefox while above one works without hitch.
- RestartKernel 7mo agoThis is an entire Unity project that won't load due to however many content blockers I've got running on my phone. The incompetent one loads instantly, though it's admittedly laggy.
- d-e-r-e-k 7mo agoThere’s too many problems here on earth for me to get excited about a trip to the moon
- FrojoS 7mo agoGiven how many of these problems are self-inflicted, maybe we should focus more on trips to the moon and beyond, not less.
- davidw 7mo agoYeah, if we cut back a bit on the war crimes we could easily fund both more moon missions and cool science, as well as a shit ton of great programs to help people with the basics like food and rent and health care.
- paulryanrogers 7mo agoOr as my parents would say, "socialism", as if that were a bad word. Now war. They think that's worth it, even if it's also bad.
- dragonwriter 7mo agoThe US spends more per capita, and even as a share of GDP, on healthcare out of public funds than some advanced industrialized states that have universal systems, as well as spending even more on healthcare out of private funds than out of public funds. If we didn’t have a system which expended vast quantities of additional resources in order to assure that a substantial subset of the population is denied needed healthcare and instead just provided the needed healthcare, we could fund all those other things without cutting back on the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace, either direct or those that we subsidize that are executed by other regimes. We still should cut down (ideally to zero) on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace, but the reason is because those things are unqualified evil on their own, not because doing so is necessary to fund healthcare and other priorities, which it very much is not.
- bluebarbet 7mo ago
- herodotus 7mo agoI am curious. If it is on the far side, where does the light come from for the photos? Other stars?
- ziftface 7mo agoThe sun
- phantom784 7mo agoThe sun still. It's just that that side never points towards the earth, but it still gets sunlight. Same as how the side we see isn't fully lit except during a full moon.
- nkrisc 7mo agoThe moon is tidally locked with the Earth, which means the same side always faces the Earth. So, for example, when the moon is between the Earth and the sun, the far side (from the perspective of Earth) would be fully illuminated by the sun. The “far side” of the moon refers to the hemisphere that can’t be seen from Earth.
- dust42 7mo agoYes, and right now is full moon, thus the far side is only illuminated by stars.
- davidw 7mo agoI wonder why they decided on that timing? If it were better illuminated by the sun, couldn't they get some better photography?
- ranger207 7mo agoThey want to fly by at lunar sunrise as the shadows help see depth better. Also, they have very sensitive cameras (up to 3,280,000 ISO!); the Earth photo the other day was taken at night, so you can see how they'll be able to get detail even in the dark parts
- _fw 7mo agoAm I losing it? They can’t be seeing the far side of the moon right now, because they haven’t adjusted course to go round the far side of the moon yet… So does this suggest the BBC is wrong and it’s the side of the moon we’re used to seeing, but just it’s “dark”? But then the astronauts are saying it’s weird seeing the moon in a whole new light (excuse the paraphrasing pun). I don’t understand.
- AnduCrandu 7mo agoI think they're saying they can see a sliver of the far side, and that seeing the moon from a slightly different angle is weird having seen the near side so often. But they didn't really make that clear.
- randomNumber7 7mo agoSounds like marketing speak.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoThey’re far enough out that they can see some stuff you don’t see from Earth. They aren’t seeing the entire far side yet. Illustrated: https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/1sd797j/the_moon_as_seen_from_artemis_ii_projected_onto/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/1sd797j/the_moon...
- runjake 7mo agoHence the use of first glimpse.
- gus_massa 7mo agoIt got deleted now. It would be nice to see a new versions if abailable. So, let's make some guess, but IANAA. Orion is in the middle of the trip going to the meeting point to the Moon in a quite straight line but the Moon is still not there. It will be there in 2 or 3 days, that is like 45° of the orbit. O . . o Earth > . . . . Moon Orion in 3 days . . . . . . o Moon now Using some sloppy Math and sloppy Astronomy, I estimate that the difference between our point of view and their point of view is 20° or 30°. So the visible surface has like a 10% difference, that is consistent to call it a "glimpse". My estimation is also similar to the graphic posted in Reddit, but I'm not sure what was the problem. I actually can't tell the difference in the photo to save my life, but I have a friend that is astronomer and I'm sure that if I show the photo to him, he could use a sharpie to mark the difference on my screen without any problem.
- davidw 7mo agoIt makes me tear up seeing the absolute 'best of us' as humanity striving and exploring in the midst of so much wretched evil and awfulness.
- deepfriedbits 7mo agoSame. There's a lot out there to get us down, but most people are fundamentally good at the end of the day, regardless of culture or borders.
- throwatdem12311 7mo agoedit: knee jerk reaction was wrong Still think what he said is worth hearing. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWvRjeEgecb/?igsh=MXZoYjZobDMwcW54cw== https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWvRjeEgecb/?igsh=MXZoYjZobDM...
- Cider9986 7mo agoThat is a shame they cut that out.
- layer8 7mo agoWhat you link to is from a different interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpPTnR5jin0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpPTnR5jin0
- throwatdem12311 7mo agothank you, as usual…knee jerk reaction was wrong, apologies and updated I still liked what he had to say so gonna leave up the link itself
- layer8 7mo agoLatest published image of the moon: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009006/ https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009006/ Photo and video gallery: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/journey-to-the-moon/ https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/journey-to-the-moon/
- kklisura 7mo agoOn one of Apollo missions they've read from Bible, Book of Genesis [1]. I wish they did something like that here - and I'm not even a Christian, let alone religious. They did relay some beautiful message [2] though. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4tDZye57D4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4tDZye57D4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELslc6O4UVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELslc6O4UVk
- delecti 7mo agoI sure hope they don't. Even just the hint of connecting this achievement to the supposed Christian nature of the US would reinforce a lot of the bad things in the world right now. Namely, that we're actively at war in the middle east (Christianity and Judaism vs Islam), in a burgeoning cold war with China (more Christianity vs "godless" communists), and run by an increasingly fascistic administration (the ties between religion and government are a hallmark of fascism).
- dotancohen 7mo agoI am not a Christian, but it was arguably the Christian value system which forged the government and institutions that made these achievements possible. Such progress happens only in high trust societies.
- Ylpertnodi 7mo agoI suggest you look up the founding fathers' views on religion.
- dotancohen 7mo agoI was addressing values, not religion, but I seem to have touched a nerve. I'm not Christian, but I recognize that Christian values lead to high-trust society, leads to innovation in industry and science. > I suggest you look up the founding fathers' views on religion Alright: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." - George Washington "It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors." - George Washington "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams "The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality, and the most refined policy that ever was conceived upon Earth." - John Adams "I hold the precepts of Jesus, as delivered by himself, to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man." - Thomas Jefferson "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever." - Thomas Jefferson
- Fricken 7mo agoAre they going to land, to get out, take a look around? No. We have moon rocks at home.
- dbacar 7mo agoRather than the far side, what about the Dark Side of the Moon?
- kqr 7mo agoBecause it's not always dark. Only during a full moon on Earth is the far side fully dark.
- syncsynchalt 7mo ago... matter of fact it's all dark. (The moon has an albedo of 12%)
- kqr 7mo agoWait, really? That is surprisingly dark. That's lower than bare terrestrial soil and closer to worn asphalt, according to Wikipedia. In photography, I've always used a rule of thumb that to expose the Moon properly, aim for daylight exposure. This makes sense to me because the Moon's illuminated by the same sun as us, at the same distance. Wikipedia confirms the impression.[1] Now, how can that be true, and the Moon still have a lower albedo than much of the stuff on Earth? Is albedo not measuring what I think it is? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value#Tabulated_exposure_values https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value#Tabulated_expos...
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- nodesocket 7mo agoIt’s sort of curious that BBC always seemed to get linked to the Artemis news on HN instead of the official NASA website or US news agencies.
- areoform 7mo agoIt's interesting to me how cautious NASA is being with Artemis II. I wrote about the risk / mortality calculation behind this, but everything from the trajectory, the decision not to do an orbital insertion, the checkout in high-Earth orbit is very cautious. I wish this mission took greater risks. Or, just at least go as far as Apollo 8, but stay for a bit longer, and try out new things. It would be fun to take a finicky low mass radio telescope experiment to the far side of the moon.
- dd_xplore 7mo agoI don't think they'd or any other space mission will take that much risk anymore. Atleast without the pressure/tension of cold war space race.
- neurostimulant 7mo ago> I wish this mission took greater risks It's already risky enough: https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....
- areoform 7mo agoYes, and that's part of what spaceflight is. https://1517.substack.com/p/1-in-30-artemis-greatness-and-risk https://1517.substack.com/p/1-in-30-artemis-greatness-and-ri... It has always been a touch-and-go affair
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoIt is not possible for them to say a bit longer because Orion doesn’t have the deltaV necessary to go into LLO and orbit the Moon like Apollo 8. Orion is like HlS in that it is the worst possible craft for a mission to the Moon, but it’s the one we have. At least Starship has a potential future for further missions.
- Tepix 7mo agoDid you miss "Artemis 2 is not safe to fly" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043 ?
- cmrdporcupine 7mo agoJust some humans doing proper awesome human stuff and being good people advancing international brotherhood and scientific advancement. Love seeing our Ontario native Jeremy Hansen on the microphone, and those two flags properly positioned beside each other. I'm not a Christian today, but was raised that way. This is the hopeful message I want to see on this day, and the true meaning of the symbol. Hope for all humankind. Working together.
- thegrim33 7mo agoIt's pretty depressing that on a corner of the internet that's supposed to be a gathering of tech/geeks/nerds/stem people, discussing topics that "good hackers would find interesting", it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political bickering.
- wileydragonfly 7mo agoWhiteys on the moon
- NamlchakKhandro 7mo ago[flagged]
- guax 7mo agoI would be more depressed if, looking at the current political landscape this corner decided to be entirely alienated or oblivious to the environment in which this massive achievement is made.
- whimsicalism 7mo agodo you think the current environment is more or less just than it was during the 1969 moon landing?
- downrightmike 7mo agoNixon wasn't in office yet, but he did have his campaign manager got to Vietnam and promise the VietCong a better deal if they walked away from negotiations, which lead to FIVE more years of war and countless lives lost for nothing other than a point to talk about on his soap box
- kurthr 7mo agoThe difference seems to be that Nixon may have been crooked, but he was largely competent. He operated on experience, expertise, and causal reality. Our current political situation is largely free of facts, knowledge, or causality. Much of the corruption that happens today is in plain sight and basically ignored. The goal is governance through depoliticization and post-truth infotainment. Note that Nixon was actually impeached by his own party and would have been removed for what would now be a single day of news cycle, only on a few networks/papers, and completely ignored by a major political party.
- md224 7mo agoA fun way to track the mission is via NASA's Eyes on the Solar System visualizer: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_artemis_2 https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_artemis_2
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- _moof 7mo agoI just need to say it's an extremely huge bummer how much cynicism and negativity there is about this mission. Is it perfect? No, of course not. Neither was Apollo. We are all painfully aware of the things that make it imperfect. It's still joyous and exciting. Try to let it be.
- EA-3167 7mo agoMost of us feel that way, but that comes with a desire to avoid engaging with unhappy internet denizens finding company in their misery. Remember that social media is a distortion of reality driven by whoever is willing to dedicate the most time and effort to dominating it.
- _moof 7mo agoThanks for the reminder - genuinely. It's hard to keep in mind sometimes.
- flopsamjetsam 7mo agoI checked out some subreddits on the mission, and left pretty quickly for that reason. It's nice to find some positivity and wonder at it. I love what Artemis II is doing, found the launch very exciting and a little nerve wracking, and can't wait until they get even closer to the Moon.
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- echelon 7mo agoNaysayers need to realize that very soon humanity will have a permanent presence on the moon. One that will outlive us all. That's beyond exciting.
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- cucumber3732842 7mo agoSo they let them just wear hoodies in space now? Or are these fancypants space hoodies that cost a quarter mil and weigh a couple grams less? Or does that level of weight reduction not matter because the rocket is nowhere near maxed out?
- cucumber3732842 7mo agoJust to be clear, this was a serious question.
- unethical_ban 7mo agoI'm sure the capsule is rated for plenty more thrust and weight than some personal items. The far smaller Apollo capsule was meant to carry back a load of moon rocks along with the crew.
- starkeeper 7mo agoWhy don't they have any decent external cameras absolutely goofy (or maybe they do and I am goofy?) also, framing!
- crimshawz 7mo ago[dead]
- wek 7mo agoso cool. This whole mission makes me feel like a kid again.
- john_rambo 7mo agohow are they broadcasting in what seems like near real-time? i don't have a whole lot of understanding on the topic, but if they're seeing the dark side of the moon then i assume they don't have line of sight to Earth. it makes me feel pretty rotten about some SQL queries i have knocking about.
- deathanatos 7mo ago> but if they're seeing the dark side of the moon then i assume they don't have line of sight to Earth No, you can see both the dark side & have line of sight to earth, at the same time. The key insight, probably, is that they're not behind the moon (yet) from Earth's PoV, and/or "seeing some of the dark side" vs. "seeing only the dark side"; currently, they are seeing only some of the dark side, assuming I'm interpreting the tracker correctly. See [this tracker](https://issinfo.net/artemis.html https://issinfo.net/artemis.html) for a diagram of their position. Currently, the arrangement is like this: ⌝ toward Earth ⋰ \ ⋰ \ ⋰ ⦙ Moon * * Orion \ ⇣ \ (moon's orbit) The line I've put here is the moon's orbit. Everything ⬃ of the line is the dark side, as it faces away from Earth. From this diagram, if you drew a vertical line through the moon, Orion sees the right half. Some of that is what the Earth sees, and some of it is not — the portion that isn't is the dark side. (Also note that "the dark side of the moon" is a specific term meaning the far side of the moon, not the literal dark portion. The "dark side of the moon" is lit 50% of the time.)
- UberFly 7mo agoAfter watching that video, all I can think is - Please come back safe.
- oyebenny 7mo agoBeautiful.
- shyam47 7mo ago[dead]
- the_arun 7mo agoI am really glad that NASA is investing in this. Hope this dream is not about exploration of travel as a service but much bigger & beyond.
- heyitsmedotjayb 7mo ago[flagged]
- Melatonic 7mo agoAnybody know if the O2O laser uplink / downlink is working? From what I understand its sort of a test and not guaranteed (depends also on weather near the ground stations).