#zero gravity indicator

[ladamania]

The zero gravity indicator Rise took over the Artemis socials today and this comment on Instagram was just 🥹😭

[intellectually-voluptuous]

Reid brought Rise onstage with them 🥺😭

[c-schroed]

There surely is a lot to say about the marvels of the new Artemis II moon mission, but currently all my simple little mind can think of is that footage of Mission Specialist Christina Koch playing with that adorable moon plushie wearing that gorgeously stupid lil earth hat:

Which is when I learned about the wonderful world of Zero Gravity Indicators:

Congrats to making it to space, Rise the Moon Plushie that's inspired by the famous Earthrise Apollo 8 pic. THIS IS SO LOVELY I COULD CRY!!!111!!1!

[sepdet]

RiSE! Zero Gravity Indicator

Hat tip to eight-year-old Lucas Ye for seeing the famous "Earthrise" photo by Apollo 8, the first mission to circle the Moon as a test flight in 1968, and thinking, "hat," in possibly the greatest leap of pareidolia ever.

This video shows Paula Cain, who adapted Lucas' design into a fire-safe plushie:

ZIGs have been present on missions going all the way back to Apollo — they help strapped-in and suited-up astronauts know when they're truly weightless.

(Also, I suspect it's a way to head off some of the tinfoil hatters claiming the ghost of Stanley Kubrick is filming them on a sound stage in Burbank.)

Did you know? The "Earthrise" photo most of us thought of before Artemis II gave us new ones is actually several photos!

On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders were coming around from the far side of the Moon on their fourth orbit. Borman began to roll the spacecraft, and as he did, the Earth rose into view over the Moon’s limb. Anders, photographing the Moon from the right side window, caught sight of the view, and exclaimed: “Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth comin’ up. Wow, is that pretty!”

He snapped a black and white photo (top), capturing humanity’s first view of Earth from another planetary body. A few minutes later, Anders put color film in the camera and took the iconic color photographs of a half Earth hanging over the lunar horizon.

(Reminder: sunlight shining on the Moon's surface means it's too bright to see stars — it's like trying to see a candle 50 feet away with those too-bright headlights shining in your face).

So what's that framed photo behind Rise? And why do we all remember the horizon-hugging Earth in color?

Over the years, some reproductions have taken the liberty of moving the Earth in the color version closer to the horizon, since we know it had been there, while others borrow the colors from the color film to colorize the b&w.

And in 2013, for the 45th anniversary of Apollo 8, NASA Goddard Space Center used Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter high-res scans of the Moon plus TERRA satellite data of Earth to improve the resolution and recreate this photo in color:

More importantly, they recreated what the Apollo astronauts saw as a movie.

Here's the "Earthrise revisited" explainer with the recording of Anders and Lovell's mad scramble to change the film before it's too late!

I think the framed photo behind "Rise!" may be a still from this animation in which the gap between Earth and the horizon is the right size to make a good brim for the Earth as a hat. 😁

[hamster-princess3]

Rise has my heart and soul

[digitallyfanged]

Congrats to RISE! And a special thank you to @nasa for holding the contest. I'm still so very honored to have been a finalist. Even though my plushie design wasn't chosen in the end, an image of my Lunar Crust-acean is on the USB drive in RISE. An artwork I did is in space! How rad is that? That means Commander Wiseman, in charge of the mission who is a Maryland native, still technically got to take a crab up with him! Shout out to the people who gave me love in encouragement along the way, from my friends and family who pushed me to go for it and enter the contest, who cheered for me along the entire way through the finals up until now, to the random people across social media posts who said they loved the crab.

[mushrooms-art-galaxy]

heres some more artemis splashdown doodles!! the way that reid has not let go of rise since he left the orion capsule is just so adorable 🥹

🩷please do not copy, colour, repost, or feed to ai🩷

[whyyesiamquoringreallife]

I like them, very silly