The Earth and the Moon: a Rare Perspective

When we attempt to visualize the distance from the Earth to the Moon we often draw upon iconic NASA images, popular science fiction, and digital art for perspective.

Drew Olbrich calls out the typical inaccuracy of these images and produces a fresh new perspective.

"Usually when you see wacky space pictures, the Moon is unrealistically close to the Earth. What's up with that? I wanted to get a better sense of exactly how the Earth and Moon would appear from an observer in space."

To gain a better perspective Olbrich created the following image:

It is striking for its true sense of scale.

"It's kinda trippy to stare at this image and then think about what the guys in the Apollo space program did. They went all the way over there, no really. They went that far away from the nearest McDonald's."

The image appears in a recent post on Forgetomori which brilliantly translates the vast distance into pixels, asking the question "what should be the image’s minimum resolution to have the Apollo spacecraft appear as a single pixel?"

You can visit Drew's blog below for a high resolution version of the image.

[Drew Olbrich]

[Forgetomori: A pixel, from Earth to the Moon, the infinite and beyond]