Eight billion people are about to disappear in this snapshot from space taken on 2022 November 21. On the sixth day of the Artemis I mission , their home world is setting behind the Moon's bright edge as viewed by an external camera on the outbound Orion spacecraft. Orion was headed for a powered flyby that took it to within 130 kilometers of the lunar surface. Velocity gained in the flyby maneuver was used to reach a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. That orbit is considered distant because it's another 92,000 kilometers beyond the Moon, and retrograde because the spacecraft orbited in the opposite direction of the Moon's orbit around planet Earth. Orion entered its distant retrograde orbit on November 25. Swinging around the Moon , Orion reached a maximum distance (just over 400,000 kilometers) from Earth on November 28, exceeding a record set by Apollo 13 for most distant spacecraft designed for human space exploration . The Artemis II mission , carrying 4
What's happening with these clouds? While it may seem that these long and thin clouds are pointing toward the top of a hill, and that maybe a world-famous observatory is located there, only part of that is true. In terms of cloud s, the formation is a chance superposition of impressively periodic undulating air currents in Earth's lower atmosphere. Undulatus , a type of Asper it as cloud, form at the peaks where the air is cool enough to cause the condensation of opaque water droplets. The wide-angle nature of the panorama creates the illusion that the clouds converge over the hill. In terms of land, there really is a world-famous observatory at the top of that peak: the Carnegie Science 's Las Campanas Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile . The two telescope domes visible are the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes . The featured coincidental vista was a surprise but was captured by the phone of a quick-thinking photographer in late September. from NASA https