Full Moon Sinking Into Earth's Blue Limb

A pale, nearly full Moon sits just above the curve of Earth's atmosphere, its lower edge softened and slightly flattened where it meets the haze. The grey maria and bright highland patches are still easy to read on the disc. Below it, a thin band of luminous blue grades into a broad white layer that fills the bottom third of the frame, while the sky above fades from deep blue into black. The palette is restrained and cold, and the mood is quiet and distant.

The flattened, dimmed look of the lower Moon comes from atmospheric refraction. Air near the surface bends and scatters light, so an object seen through the thick lower layers is distorted and fainter than it is higher up. Astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Discovery photographed the scene from orbit on 21 December 1999, which gives a view of the atmosphere edge-on, seen as a thin shell rather than as open sky. The wide landscape frame and large areas of dark and light space suit widescreen and ultrawide monitors, and the black upper area leaves room for desktop icons.

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