APOD: 2022 November 17 - Planet Earth from Orion

Good afternoon, Rallypoint, and welcome to the November 17th edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "Planet Earth from Orion." It is sure great to see our planet from an American spacecraft again. This view of Earth is from Orion, which was launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Here's the update from the Artemis/Orion blog site:

"NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft is heading toward the Moon on a 25.5-day mission beyond the lunar surface. Orion lifted off atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 1:47 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers intend to learn as much as possible about Orion’s performance during the flight test and are focused on the primary objectives for the mission: demonstrating Orion’s heat shield at lunar return re-entry conditions, demonstrating operations and facilities during all mission phases, and retrieving the spacecraft after splashdown."

I'm sure we will see more updates between now and December 11th, when Orion returns from its mission to the Moon.