In a cosmic version of a disappearing act, the Moon slips behind the haze of our blue planet in a real-time video posted to Instagram on May 4, 2018.
The stunning scene was captured by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, who is currently traveling through space at 27,600 kilometers per hour (17,150 miles per hour) on the International Space Station (ISS).
“So I tried to make a video of #moonset for the first time,” he wrote on the post.
For those of us with our feet firmly planted on Earth, such visuals are a thing of beauty only glimpsed when those in space share their photos and videos. For the cosmonauts and astronauts aboard the ISS, however, moonsets and moonrises are a common occurrence, seen multiple times a day.
“The Moon is setting. It’s like the heartbeat,” Artemyev said while filming, according to RT. “Now a little more and it will reach the atmosphere.”
Not a bad day at work, I’d say.
This is Artemyev’s third mission to space, launching to the ISS on March 21, 2018, via the Soyuz MS-08. He previously spent roughly six months in space aboard the ISS in 2014.
Other posts by Artemyev include SpaceX's dragon CRS-14 cargo ship undocking from the International Space Station, as well as him using a hair clipper with a vacuum cleaner hose attached. Check out more of his photography here.
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