With all the difficult things involved with space travel: resources, training, funding and being off the planet for a long period of time, no one would expect that an iPhone camera roll may be one of the most important things to consider from the flight.
Back on Earth, people were already amazed by the photos of Earth taken from the Orion spacecraft’s main hatch. A variety of photos taken from DSLRs and GoPro cameras were already impressive, but it was the “space selfies” shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max that truly captured everyone’s interest.
Only one chance in this lifetime…
Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset. You can hear the shutter on the Nikon as @Astro_Christina is hammering away on 3-shot brackets and capturing those… pic.twitter.com/8aWnaFJ69c
— Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) April 19, 2026
On April 19, 2026, Artemis 2 Commander Reid Wiseman shot a 53-second video of the Earth slowly sinking sideways behind the moon’s surface, an Earthset. “Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset,” Wiseman wrote on X.
The video is refreshing, no cuts, no editing, just the simple beauty of the Earth slowly getting smaller and smaller, until suddenly, it disappears behind the moon entirely. It was one of those rare moments that can’t be found anywhere else, and its simplicity, in part due to being shot on iPhone, is what has garnered it over 14 million views on one post alone.
Image Credit: Reid Wiseman
Source: Gizmodo
