Britt Jones
NASA Artemis II crew has had to dispel yet another conspiracy after setting off to the Moon last week.
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen are currently in space, having departed from Earth on April 1.
The team are the first group to travel to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, and while it’s an amazing feat, they just can’t catch a break with the rumors circulating social media.
First, there were talks that the whole thing was fake after a CNN live interview appeared to show a green screen glitch.
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Then people claimed the NASA astronauts were using the Artemis II mission for product placements in space after a Nutella jar was seen in the middle of the cabin.
Now... people are talking about the stars.
It all came about when one person asked the crew during a live stream: "I wonder, do you still see stars in outer space?"
To this, Hansen revealed that he thought he’d be able to see more stars, but was surprised to find that he wasn’t able to.
He said: "Yeah, I was actually just talking to my crewmates about that today. I've definitely seen stars in outer space, and I was saying I haven't as many as I thought I would. Reid?" Reid (Wiseman) then replied that there is a scientific explanation, namely that the Sun reflects light in space the same way it does on Earth.
This is why we can’t see stars during the day, but can when the Earth moves around the Sun, turning our skies black when we’re not on the Sun-facing side.
He said: "We have so much illumination from the sun on the moon and the earth right now, it is hard at times to see stars, just like when you walk out in the daytime, you see a blue sky but no stars."
To this, people were sceptical.
One X user wrote that the crew should be able to see the stars as they are closer to them, noting: “It’s hard to see stars in space but not inside earth? Yet y’all are miles closer? real ones know the earth is flat, encased under a firmament. Nobody can leave this place. The sun and moon are literally inside the earth.”
The user went on to call the crew a slur.
According to Emily Lakdawalla in a 2019 article for The Planetary Society, it would be like trying to take a picture of someone standing next to a well-lit window.
It’s going to be hard to capture. The same can be said for our eyes trying to distinguish specs of light when in the presence of a giant ball of burning gas.
To be honest, it doesn't seem all that hard to understand, but conspiracies will pop up regardless of an explanation.