Why don’t space photos ever show stars? NASA’s explanation is simpler than you’d think and a photo from Artemis II proves it.
Yahoo • • science
Key Points:
- NASA's Artemis II mission images of the Moon and Earth show pitch-black backgrounds without stars due to camera exposure settings prioritizing bright foreground objects, making faint stars invisible.
- Cameras balance shutter speed, ISO, and aperture to capture bright surfaces like the Moon, which causes stars to vanish in photos; this is a common photographic limitation, not a conspiracy.
- During a total solar eclipse captured by Artemis II, stars became visible because the Moon blocked the Sun’s brightness, allowing the camera to capture the dimmer stars around the darkened lunar disk.
- The Artemis II mission, the first crewed lunar flyby since 1972, set records including the first woman beyond low Earth orbit and the farthest distance traveled by a crewed mission, while capturing historic lunar and Earth imagery.
- NASA emphasizes that stars are always present in space photos but require specific conditions and camera settings to be seen, as demonstrated by the eclipse image where stars appeared clearly.
