Featured Image Credit: NASA
The world remains fascinated with 2026's Artemis 2 mission, and while we haven't quite landed man back on the Moon, the flyby has entered the history books as a record-breaking feat of engineering. As well as boasting the first woman to go beyond low Earth orbit, thanks to Christina Koch, Victor Glover was also the first Black person to visit the Moon, and their Orion capsule recorded the fastest reentry ever.
Importantly, Artemis 2 took the human race further into space than ever before to eclipse the record previously set by Apollo 13. There was plenty of hype as Artemis 2 took us back to the Moon for the first time since 1972, hoping to let NASA and the general public alike know if anything has changed up in space. While technology has obviously advanced a lot in the past 54 years, there were plenty of similarities between the Artemis program and the now-defunct Apollo missions.
Back in the day, most images of the Moon were snapped by medium-format Hasselblad cameras. But, just like the tech aboard spaceships has come on leaps and bounds, even the most standard cameras are far more advanced in 2026. It's a bizarre factoid that even an iPhone 6 was said to be 120 million times faster than the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) that was used in the 1969 lunar lander.
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As for modern iPhones, they have over one million times more RAM and seven million times more ROM than the craft that has Neil Armstrong saying, "One small step for man..."
It seems Apple has become an unofficial sponsor of Artemis 2, and after one snap taken on an iPhone 17 Pro Max went viral, Reid Wiseman has shared another jaw-dropping picture.
Posting on X, the mission commander shared some exclusive behind-the-scenes footage that showed him trying to capture the visual Earthset phenomenon. This is where the Earth appears to sink beneath the lunar horizon, with the key moment being captured when the Artemis 2 crew was in lunar orbit.
In the video, Wiseman explains how Koch is using the 400mm lens of a Nikon camera to nab official shots. He couldn't resist whipping out his iPhone and trying his own hand at photography.
Being equally amazed by the shot, Wiseman wrote: "I could barely see the Moon through the docking hatch window but the iPhone was the perfect size to catch the view…this is uncropped, uncut with 8x zoom which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye. Enjoy."
The video shows the rare moment that Earth slips behind the edge of the Moon, with something astronauts call the 'lunar limb'.
NASA astronauts have become known for their impressive camera skills, with Don Pettit collating an amazing portfolio of images from space over the years. Wiseman has the honor of taking the now-iconic "Hello, World" image from this year's mission, but again, this was snapped using a Nikon camera. The fact that he managed to capture such a crisp Earthset image using just an iPhone is truly amazing.
There's something profound about Wiseman saying the image is like "watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos," but as with anything shared by the Artemis 2 crew, there are obvious conspiracy theories.
Responding in the comments, one naysayer said: "Honestly, it just doesn’t sit right with me. Why didn’t they show a live view out of the window? That’s literally the whole reason I was watching—to actually see the moon from the capsule in real time. The fact they didn’t makes it feel suspicious and, honestly, pretty strange."
Others loved the video, with someone writing: "Only one chance... and you nailed it with a damn phone. Mind officially blown."
A third joked: "Apple marketing department is screaming right now. 'Shot on iPhone... from lunar orbit'."
