The planet is… up to something

During the Artemis II crewed mission around the Moon in April 2026, the NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman took a series of photographs capturing the nightside of Earth illuminated by moonlight. After the photographs were released to the public, a Redditor combined several of them to create a dynamic image. In this video essay, the popular US YouTuber Hank Green makes the case that – like the famed ‘Earthrise’ photo, the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image popularised by Carl Sagan, and the Hubble Deep Field pictures containing thousands of galaxies – watching this brief timelapse is an awe-inspiring experience, even if it doesn’t necessarily convey any new information. However, unlike those earlier images, its message isn’t one of our extraordinary smallness. Instead, with its dance of naturally occurring and human-made phenomena, the story it tells is one of our growing significance – for better and for worse. Image by Reid Wiseman/NASA. GIF by Reddit user ResponsibilityNo2097 videoAstronomy The majestic Earth as seen through the eyes of astronauts orbiting above 6 minutes videoAstronomy Close encounters of a different kind – what if Venus, Neptune or Saturn hovered close by? 2 minutes videoPhilosophy of science How humanity’s first glimpse of the earth from space changed our species forever 19 minutes videoAstronomy How an unplanned picture from Apollo 8 altered humanity’s perspective of Earth 30 minutes videoSpace exploration Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets 31 minutes videoAstronomy Visualisations explore what the deep future holds for our night sky 6 minutes videoAstronomy From zero to 5,000 – music and visuals express 30 years of exoplanet discoveries 1 minute videoSpace exploration What are you really seeing when you see magnificent images of space? 5 minutes videoThe environment A dizzying ‘advertisement for Earth’ shows the beauty and scars of our planet 3 minutes