APOD: Planet Earth from Orion (2023 Nov 18)

[APOD Robot]

Planet Earth from Orion

Explanation: One year ago a Space Launch System rocket left planet Earth on November 16, 2022 at 1:47am EST carrying the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis I mission, the first integrated test of NASA's deep space exploration systems. Over an hour after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center's historic Launch Complex 39B, one of Orion's external video cameras captured this view of its new perspective from space. In the foreground are Orion's Orbital Maneuvering System engine and auxillary engines, at the bottom of the European Service Module. Beyond one of the module's 7-meter long extended solar array wings lies the spacecraft's beautiful home world. Making close flybys of the lunar surface and reaching a retrograde orbit 70,000 kilometers beyond the Moon, the uncrewed Artemis I mission lasted over 25 days, testing capabilities to enable human exploration of the Moon and Mars. Building on the success of Artemis I, no earlier than November 2024 the Artemis II mission with a crew of 4 will venture around the Moon and back again.

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[RocketRon]

Marvellous image. !!

This has been discussed previously, but that seems a heck of a distance "in one hour".....
Warp speed 9, Mr Spock ??

[MarkBour]

Marvellous image. !!

This has been discussed previously, but that seems a heck of a distance "in one hour".....
Warp speed 9, Mr Spock ??

Good point Ron, Earth is pretty distant in this shot. I guess "over an hour" leaves it open for interpretation.

The "perspective from space" link in the image explanation goes to a nice gallery of stills from the mission; this image is on page 3 of that gallery, and its caption lists the distance to Earth as 57,000 miles for this shot. The solar arrays are deployed and it has separated from the ICPS. Maybe about 9-10 hours into the flight?

[Chris Peterson]

Marvellous image. !!

This has been discussed previously, but that seems a heck of a distance "in one hour".....
Warp speed 9, Mr Spock ??

I don't see any reference to its distance from the Earth.

[johnnydeep]

Marvellous image. !!

This has been discussed previously, but that seems a heck of a distance "in one hour".....
Warp speed 9, Mr Spock ??

I don't see any reference to its distance from the Earth.

The distance (57,000 miles) is listed on the page Mark Bour referenced, which is this one https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2expl ... 303788800/

[Chris Peterson]

Marvellous image. !!

This has been discussed previously, but that seems a heck of a distance "in one hour".....
Warp speed 9, Mr Spock ??

I don't see any reference to its distance from the Earth.

The distance (57,000 miles) is listed on the page Mark Bour referenced, which is this one https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2expl ... 303788800/

So no need for warp speed!

[johnnydeep]

I don't see any reference to its distance from the Earth.

The distance (57,000 miles) is listed on the page Mark Bour referenced, which is this one https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2expl ... 303788800/

So no need for warp speed!

Yeah, 7 Earth diameters looks about right for that shot, and if Orion was travelling at 25,000 mph it could cover that in 2 hours. Not sure how fast it was going though.

[Chris Peterson]

The distance (57,000 miles) is listed on the page Mark Bour referenced, which is this one https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2expl ... 303788800/

So no need for warp speed!

Yeah, 7 Earth diameters looks about right for that shot, and if Artemis was travelling at 25,000 mph it could cover that in 2 hours. Not sure how fast it was going though.

I wouldn't presume to estimate the distance based on how the Earth looks here. We could be anywhere from a few hundred miles to a million miles away, depending on the camera focal length and position on the craft.

[johnnydeep]

So no need for warp speed!

Yeah, 7 Earth diameters looks about right for that shot, and if Artemis was travelling at 25,000 mph it could cover that in 2 hours. Not sure how fast it was going though.

I wouldn't presume to estimate the distance based on how the Earth looks here. We could be anywhere from a few hundred miles to a million miles away, depending on the camera focal length and position on the craft.

[orin stepanek]

The view of the Earth from Orion is fabulous1

[RocketRon]

Blind Freddy can see that Earth is quite a distance away already, focal length or not.
Unless it was at warp factor 9, at a mere hours flight time, Earth would loom large in the sky.
Very large.

When this was discussed previously, it was observed that other showings of this exact same
image were captioned at 7 hours flight time. (?).

Its disappointing seeing APOD repeating the same basic factual error.
When APOD is the only source of this error....

Perhaps someone misread a 7 as a 1 ??

[Chris Peterson]

Blind Freddy can see that Earth is quite a distance away already, focal length or not.
Unless it was at warp factor 9, at a mere hours flight time, Earth would loom large in the sky.
Very large.

When this was discussed previously, it was observed that other showings of this exact same
image were captioned at 7 hours flight time. (?).

Its disappointing seeing APOD repeating the same basic factual error.
When APOD is the only source of this error....

Perhaps someone misread a 7 as a 1 ??

The apparent size of the Moon depends on the focal length of the camera and its location with respect to the foreground. The Earth could look like this from low orbit. If there were fewer clouds we could identify land masses and figure out the distance by determining just how much of the facing hemisphere is visible. But that seems rather difficult with this image.

[johnnydeep]

Blind Freddy can see that Earth is quite a distance away already, focal length or not.
Unless it was at warp factor 9, at a mere hours flight time, Earth would loom large in the sky.
Very large.

When this was discussed previously, it was observed that other showings of this exact same
image were captioned at 7 hours flight time. (?).

Its disappointing seeing APOD repeating the same basic factual error.
When APOD is the only source of this error....

Perhaps someone misread a 7 as a 1 ??

The apparent size of the Moon depends on the focal length of the camera and its location with respect to the foreground. The Earth could look like this from low orbit. If there were fewer clouds we could identify land masses and figure out the distance by determining just how much of the facing hemisphere is visible. But that seems rather difficult with this image.

So is RocketRon questioning the 57,000 mile distance figure from the previously posted NASA Flickr page (https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2expl ... 303788800/)? Again, that's only 7 Earth diameters and could have been easily traversed in under 3 hours - which is "over an hour" - depending on speed.

[RocketRon]

So is RocketRon questioning the 57,000 mile distance figure from the previously posted NASA Flickr page

Not at all.

57,000 miles is approx 1/4 of the way to the moon (allowing for a somewhat curvilinear path_)
And the Earth looks suitably distant. (ignoring Chris's fish eye lens !!!)

So 7 hours into its flight is quite possible.
And matches the travel time quite well.

Its still disappointing that APOD has not corrected this earlier misinformation...
And Chris is still stonewalling.

[RocketRon]

I am a little surprised though that it only made 57,000 miles in 7 hours.

But in reading back on this mission, it is noted that it took a leisurely 5 days to reach the moon,
rather than the much quicker Apollo 11 etc timeframes.

Be interesting to see charts of how the courses compared ?
Celestial navigation has always intrigued, being there are no obvious waypoints along the way.
Only the starting point and endpoint are 'fixed' - and they keep moving !!
If somewhat predictably ...

[Rauf]

Here's another NASA blog using this picture:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/kennedy/category/artemis-i/

A view of Earth as seen from the Artemis I Orion capsule about 9 hours into flight on Nov. 16, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV)

And this website also mentions that the picture has been taken over 9 hours after liftoff:
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/ ... -artemis-i

Now, I don't know anything about focal length or photography, but all the other sources that I found imply that the picture was not taken about 1 hour after liftoff.

Here's another view of Orion from a different date.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration ... rtemis_III

On the 25th day of the Artemis I mission, Orion captures its European Service Module and Earth. The image was taken by a camera mounted on the European Service Module solar array wings, on 9 December 2022.

[RocketRon]

Well found.
I think we can (again) say that APOD is well and truly the odd man out here.

[Chris Peterson]

So is RocketRon questioning the 57,000 mile distance figure from the previously posted NASA Flickr page

Not at all.

57,000 miles is approx 1/4 of the way to the moon (allowing for a somewhat curvilinear path_)
And the Earth looks suitably distant. (ignoring Chris's fish eye lens !!!)

So 7 hours into its flight is quite possible.
And matches the travel time quite well.

Its still disappointing that APOD has not corrected this earlier misinformation...
And Chris is still stonewalling.

Stonewalling?

[johnnydeep]

Here's another NASA blog using this picture:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/kennedy/category/artemis-i/

A view of Earth as seen from the Artemis I Orion capsule about 9 hours into flight on Nov. 16, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV)

And this website also mentions that the picture has been taken over 9 hours after liftoff:
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/ ... -artemis-i

Now, I don't know anything about focal length or photography, but all the other sources that I found imply that the picture was not taken about 1 hour after liftoff.

Here's another view of Orion from a different date.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration ... rtemis_III

European_Service_Module-1_in_flight_pillars.jpg

On the 25th day of the Artemis I mission, Orion captures its European Service Module and Earth. The image was taken by a camera mounted on the European Service Module solar array wings, on 9 December 2022.

Thanks, Rauf. So, the time of that picture is likely much more than 1 hour, and perhaps as many as 9 hours. However - and I'm now quibbling here - but "over an hour" is still correct, if not particularly accurate. I seem to recall that the original wording was "about an hour", which was much more misleading.

And it would indeed be nice to find an interactive tracker of the mission. There was a "real time" tracker you apparently could follow at one time, but the link is now defunct. See https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/o ... real-time/, and the link there to https://www.nasa.gov/specials/trackartemis/, which is dead.

[Chris Peterson]

Here's another NASA blog using this picture:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/kennedy/category/artemis-i/

A view of Earth as seen from the Artemis I Orion capsule about 9 hours into flight on Nov. 16, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV)

And this website also mentions that the picture has been taken over 9 hours after liftoff:
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/ ... -artemis-i

Now, I don't know anything about focal length or photography, but all the other sources that I found imply that the picture was not taken about 1 hour after liftoff.

Here's another view of Orion from a different date.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration ... rtemis_III

European_Service_Module-1_in_flight_pillars.jpg

On the 25th day of the Artemis I mission, Orion captures its European Service Module and Earth. The image was taken by a camera mounted on the European Service Module solar array wings, on 9 December 2022.

Assuming that the APOD image was actually taken 57,000 miles from Earth, we can conclude that the FOV of the camera is 54°. Which means that in the more distant image the camera was about 236,000 miles from Earth. Which suggests that Artemis made that image from near the Moon.