Moon Joy and cosmic awe

Short note today to share that Monday evening might have been the most significant experience of cosmic awe humans have experienced since 1972. The New York Times has reported on “Moon Joy,” explaining that while “science can seem colorless and plain, NASA’s lunar crew members have brought expressiveness and emotion about their journey to mission control and the public.”
Having studied astronauts’ experiences of awe and wonder, I wanted to share some of my impressions with you. First, the crew had an unprecedented moment of awe-in-space that caught my attention. The April 1stlaunch date allowed the Integrity to get into the perfect position on the far side of the Moon to see our satellite eclipse the Sun. Unlike the weirdly precise sizes of the Sun and Moon (as we see them from the Earth) that causes the Moon’s disc to exactly overlap the Sun’s disc, the Moon seemed bigger than the Sun to the Artemis II astronauts, creating a different sort of corona effect. The Moon was backlit by the sun and bathed in reflected earthshine, creating an amazingly beautiful sight. Unlike a total solar eclipse on Earth, which can last several minutes (the longest totality I’ve seen lasted about four and a half minutes), this eclipse lasted nearly an hour.
The pictures from the eclipse are incredible and it was clear that the astronauts struggled to both comprehend and express the significance of what they were seeing. Mission pilot Victor Glover said, “Humans probably have not evolved to see what we’re seeing,” while commander Reid Wisemen added, “Our brains are not processing this image in front of us.”
Even seeing the Moon from close up was amazing. Christina Koch talked about how she was moved by her observations and said she had been struck by the realization that “A moon is really its own body in the universe.” Interestingly, her sense of really understanding this seemed to come and go. She explained, “It lasted just a second or two, and I actually couldn’t even make it happen again.” This seems to be something like a lunar version of the overview effect, where the reality of what astronauts see overcomes existing expectations or understandings. It will be interesting to see how these sorts of observations grow and develop when the Artemis IV astronauts travel back to the Moon to enter orbit it and hopefully walk on its surface (Artemis III is now planned to be an Earth orbit mission testing the equipment and spacecraft to be used for Artemis IV).
While the ultraview effect was probably not possible during the flyby (one of the astronauts mentioned a “starfield” but given the amount of earthshine that was also mentioned I’m guessing true dark-adaptation was unlikely), true awe, cosmic awe, was clearly evident, feeding into the “Moon joy” of Integrity’s team.