I want to make a 2001:ASO reference so bad, with your username and the context and all, but I can’t for the life of me muster any cleverness. I also would love to know the answer. So let’s be dumb together, Dave.
Edit: Solar eclipse! Thanks someone further down the thread. Looked it up and it appears they had a 54-minute solar eclipse and 40 minutes of radio silence. Must have been amazing.
In this fully illuminated view of the Moon, the near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth), is visible on the right. It is identifiable by the dark splotches that cover its surface. These are ancient lava flows from a time early in the Moon’s history when it was volcanically active. The large crater west of the lava flows is Orientale basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide crater that straddles the Moon’s near and far sides. Orientale’s left half is not visible from Earth, but in this image we have a full view of the crater. Everything to the left of the crater is the far side, the hemisphere we don’t get to see from Earth because the Moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that it orbits round us.
Long story short, like 3/4 of what is in this photo is the near side of the moon.
As a side note, the coloured image on the left of the OP appears to be this image that reddit detectives have decided was edited by OP. No one has found that coloured version on any NASA release.
I want to make a 2001:ASO reference so bad, with your username and the context and all, but I can’t for the life of me muster any cleverness. I also would love to know the answer. So let’s be dumb together, Dave.
Edit: Solar eclipse! Thanks someone further down the thread. Looked it up and it appears they had a 54-minute solar eclipse and 40 minutes of radio silence. Must have been amazing.
Well I am a step closer to the answer. Here a similar photo taken on the Artemis II mission with the same identifying features: https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e009212
Long story short, like 3/4 of what is in this photo is the near side of the moon.
As a side note, the coloured image on the left of the OP appears to be this image that reddit detectives have decided was edited by OP. No one has found that coloured version on any NASA release.