The Artemis II crew has just completed one of the most daring portions of their moon mission: a translunar burn to finally jettison the Orion spacecraft from the Earth’s gravitational pull and put it on a trajectory to fly around the far side of the moon.
It was a risky maneuver and prompted some deep reflection, perhaps no better embodied than in the stunning image of Earth captured by NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman.
Shared by NASA on Friday, the image shows the Earth in full with a pair of auroras created as our globe eclipses the sun.
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No one knows at this moment how Wiseman captured the image, whether it was done with a NASA-issued digital camera or one of the smartphones the crew was allowed to bring along for the Artemis II mission.
Perhaps, though, that doesn’t matter. It’s the kind of photo that’s instantly iconic. Some might compare it to the Earthrise photo taken during Apollo 8’s 1968 lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders. The new image certainly stirs some emotions.
I was so taken with the photo that I decided I wanted it on my iPhone 17 Pro Max — all the time. Turning it into my wallpaper and background was the obvious answer, but there were some hurdles.
Usage is not a problem: Virtually all NASA images are in the public domain. The issue was the size and aspect ratio.
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As shot by Wideman, the image is 5568×3712 pixels, which, by the way, does not exactly match the iPhone’s 24MP resolution in 16×9, 4:3, or 1:1. The iPhone 17 Pro Max’s optical wallpaper image size is 1320×2868. You can see the problem.
Making the Artemis II Earth photo into iPhone wallpaper
