Composite Artemis II Animation Shows Just How Much Stuff Is in Low Earth Orbit
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Gizmodo
Latest We often hear about the number of objects that are whizzing around our planet, but it’s rare that we actually get to see the situation for ourselves. NASA released a decent visualization a couple of years ago, but the recent Artemis II mission provided an unexpected first-hand glimpse of just how crowded low Earth orbit is getting. Along with a bunch of stunning photos of the moon, the Artemis II mission captured a heap of images of the Earth. Those images include a bunch of small points of light near the Earth. At first glance, it’s easy to mistake them for stars—especially in a single still image—but as various users on the Artemis subreddit were delighted to discover, some are in fact satellites in low Earth orbit. And happily, there are enough photos taken in rapid succession that you can string them together to create an animation.
Published: May 8, 2026 2:05 pm
Source: Gizmodo — Read original