Photo of Earth and our Moon, from the Orion spacecraft

A few earlier spacecraft, on the way to Mars or Jupiter, have taken photos of the Moon and Earth from this distance, but I have never seen a shot with this much clarity. (Orion is in a much wider orbit than the Apollo craft were).

And this also gives me a chance to babble again about one of my pet peeves: the far side of the moon, which obviously is facing us in the picture, is not a "dark side". It gets as much light as the near side does.

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TheOneyouwerewarnedabout · 46-50, MVIP

In this instance.. the dark side would be the side the sun ain’t hitting 😁

Why does the moon look bigger that earth? 🤔

DrWatson · 70-79, M

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout Because the camera is closer to the moon than to the earth.

TheOneyouwerewarnedabout · 46-50, MVIP

@DrWatson the scaling hurts my eyes.
I would have imagined, the earth from that distance, I wouldn’t be able to see the moon at all.. 🤔

DrWatson · 70-79, M

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout I don't understand your confusion. The moon is in the foreground, and the earth is in the background.

If someone took a picture of me in the foreground and an automobile several blocks away in the background, I would look bigger than the automobile.

TheOneyouwerewarnedabout · 46-50, MVIP

@DrWatson
Lolz.
The moon is way smaller than earth right?
Even if the pic was taken when the moon is in between the earth and satellite that took the pic…. ( a satellite eclipse if you will)
My brains telling me it would be smaller.
Even from a distance I’d expect to see a big ball and a little ball 😁

DrWatson · 70-79, M

It's called perspective.

The pigeon in this picture is a lot smaller than the boat in the river, right?
Yet it looks bigger than the boat.