What NASA's images of Earth show and how they were made
The first new images of the entire Earth from space are causing discussions. All it takes is a good photographer and camera.
The night side of the Earth, photographed with a Nikon D5 by Reid Wiseman aboard Artemis 2 on April 3, 2026.
(Image: NASA, Beschriftung: heise medien)
Yesterday, Friday, NASA released the first photos of the entire Earth taken from the Orion capsule of the Artemis 2 mission. Since then, the content and technology of the shots have been discussed in various ways on social networks. Not only conspiracy theorists, but also photography enthusiasts are amazed by the bright image that NASA has named “Hello World”.
It shows the Earth against the sun's backlight, and contrary to usual views, it is practically upside down: the North Pole is at the bottom left, the South Pole at the top right. Because it was taken with very high camera sensitivity and a long exposure time – more on the technology shortly – the Earth appears brightly lit. And that, although the image shows the night side. This makes the polar lights clearly visible, as well as the artificial lighting of large cities and the zodiacal light, which the sun produces. NASA has published the image here in full resolution as a JPEG, including EXIF data.
(Image:Â NASA, Beschriftung: heise medien)
One image, two exposure settings
The only light source for the Earth in the shot is moonlight, which was quite strong on April 3, shortly after the full moon on April 2. Also in the Southern Hemisphere, which “Hello, World” predominantly shows: At the bottom left is Africa, below it the Iberian Peninsula, and at the right edge of the photo, parts of western South America can still be recognized. To illustrate that it is an intentionally composed shot of the Earth's night side, NASA has also released the same perspective with different camera settings. Metropolitan areas on the coasts of Africa and South America appear as bright points of light there.
(Image:Â NASA, Montage: heise online)
The stars, which are otherwise missing from many Earth photos from space – including the famous “Blue Marble” from Apollo 17 – are clearly visible in “Hello World”, and even certain constellations are recognizable. This is explained by the large aperture of f/4.0 chosen by the photographer. He is the commander of the Artemis 2 mission, Reid Wiseman. Like all NASA astronauts, he was trained in the proper use of the cameras on board, as he demonstrated in a Facebook post with a video, among other things.
Nikon D5 due to enormous dynamic range
The camera used to take the pictures is a proven professional workhorse: the digital full-frame single-lens reflex camera Nikon D5. It was launched almost exactly ten years ago and has a low resolution of 20.8 megapixels by today's standards. But: Its sensitivity (ISO) can be boosted up to 3,280,000, and even at lower sensitivities, it is characterized by a very high dynamic range – exactly what is needed for astrophotography. Reid Wiseman also praised the camera's low-light performance in his video. “Hello World” was taken with ISO 51,200, a setting at which even the most modern cameras do not deliver such clear images. Whether the published image, which comes from Adobe's Lightroom Classic 15.2.1, has been heavily denoised cannot be definitively determined. ISO 51,200 still showed acceptable images with visible, but not strongly disturbing, noise in our test of the Nikon D5.
However, another characteristic can be determined by visual inspection: the image was probably not composed of multiple shots (compositing) or corrected. The former is very unlikely because the noise appears natural, as from a sensor at high ISO values. The focal length of 22 millimeters speaks for the absence of correction. This is at the long end of the Nikkor 14–24 mm 1:2.8G ED, which was used according to the EXIF data. Unlike extreme wide-angle lenses, this does not cause particularly strong distortions. There are supposed to be two lenses on board per camera.
Almost no motion blur possible
This leaves the question of motion blur, which according to some commentators, must undoubtedly occur with an exposure time of a quarter of a second. However, this is not the case, because, from a perspective point of view, the Orion capsule moves almost linearly away from the Earth – even if the trajectory appears as an arc in two dimensions. Furthermore, the Earth does not rotate so quickly that its depiction as a whole would cause significant blurring at 1/4s. In the case of a partial view of the night sky, as seen from Earth, the movements of the stars and planets are added to the Earth's rotation, which causes more blurring.
Videos by heise
On board Artemis 2, in addition to two Nikon D5s, there is also an example of the current, mirrorless Nikon flagship Z9. As already reported, NASA has been working for some time to convert this camera into a “Handheld Universal Lunar Camera” (HULC). Among other things, with a heating blanket and a simplified menu. According to Reid Wiseman, the Z9 is also a “great device”, but it is now primarily on board for radiation testing. In addition to the three system cameras, the astronauts also have their private iPhones for photography.
As was already noted in the forum for this article, according to the EXIF data, a Nikkor 14–24 mm 1:2.8G was used. The corresponding sentence has been corrected.
Our live ticker for the Artemis-2 mission:
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