It can't be though. It's earth's dark side. It couldn't be bright like that -- it's not physically possible, right? At best it would be a sliver of a crescent.
Also, in the other photo, there's a dark circular object partially obscuring. That would have to be earth, no? Obscuring the sun, which means the object on the horizon is... lens flare even brighter than the sun, or something?
Do people here understand my confusion? I'm not convinced the captions are accurate, because they seem to contradict what's physically possible.
I know you’re feeling crazy right now, im too appalled at HNers inability to comprehend such simple logic and yet sound so confidently wrong at the same time.
How is it possible you’re looking at a light source, and still see the shadow of an object shining? Right? Unless there is another very bright light source behind, which in this case there isn’t.
tl;dr: The bright object above is the sun, not the earth. The bright "object" on the horizon is a "doubling" reflection of the sun in one of the camera's lenses. It doesn't exist in reality. This happens when photographing the sun on earth as well with certain lenses. The earth is black and totally invisible, except that it's a tiny partial eclipse covering up a tiny bit of the sun at the top (clearer in other photos), which is why it's a little "flat" at the top. The photo is not the precise moment of sunset. The caption is entirely wrong.
> the object on the horizon is... lens flare even brighter than the sun, or something?
This is a photo of sunset. The nature of sunset ought to be pretty easy to understand, from the point of view of the camera on a large object, the Sun seems to go behind the object and then it can't see the Sun any more, and we call this "setting". So no, the object on the horizon is the Sun, it's incredibly bright.
I expect the problem is like with that "3.6 Roentgen, not great, not terrible" meme, you're assuming that a device (the camera) is giving you correct information but it was maxed out instead. The Earth looks bright from the Moon, as the Moon does to us. So lets call that 100% bright. Now the Sun is several hundred thousand times brighter. That's um... oh, it's 100% bright again, because we've maxed out the device.
> The Earth looks bright from the Moon, as the Moon does to us. So lets call that 100% bright.
No it doesn't, because as I've stated twice, it's the dark side of the earth we're seeing, because the sun is behind it. It's more like 1% bright, as compared to the moon's visible illuminated surface.
Think how bright the dark part of a thin crescent moon is. That's how bright the earth is going to be in this picture. Close to black, except for maybe a sliver of a crescent similar in brightness to the moon's surface.
So again -- this photo makes no sense. Unless one of the two objects is just lens flare, or there's another kind of artifact.
Wide angle lens could explain it. We see the earth is not fully illuminated in one of the pictures. And the “curve” of the lunar surface is most likely from wide angle lens.
You’re stuck on being certain we’re looking at the dark side. My point of wide angle lens is maybe we’re not looking at it in a crescent state after all, the angles just appear that way due to the lens. You can see the illumination state in the other photos.
I’m not sure what you’re proposing, that this is a fake image?
I'm not "stuck" on it being the dark side. Of course I'm certain it is, that's how the solar system works. It's how shade works. The sun isn't in between the earth and the moon, or else we wouldn't be here commenting on HN. ;)
Also, in the other photo, there's a dark circular object partially obscuring. That would have to be earth, no? Obscuring the sun, which means the object on the horizon is... lens flare even brighter than the sun, or something?
Do people here understand my confusion? I'm not convinced the captions are accurate, because they seem to contradict what's physically possible.