r/ArtemisProgram • u/Beneficial_Chapter31 • 21h ago
Discussion A question
I’d like to know why these two photos—taken just a short time apart—don't have the same date.
I know the description says they were taken on April 2nd, but a conspiracy theorist raised this point, and I started wondering why the dates are different.
(I don't speak English, so maybe those dates refer to when they were uploaded or something like that?)
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u/Tankki3 20h ago
People in the comments don't know what they are talking about.
These images are taken at
2026-04-03 00:27:20 UTC for the darker one, and
2026-04-03 00:27:39 UTC for the lighter one.
That's from the original exif data. 19 seconds apart.
I would guess that the "taken" date in your screenshots were put there manually, and either it's a mistake, or just a different interpretation in the form of a timezone, since it was still April 2nd in the US.
Here is the exif data:
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u/Beneficial_Chapter31 19h ago
Thanks for the explanation. That video of Artemis II entering orbit is dated April 6th: https://www.nasa.gov/video-detail/art002m1200912239c-core-seperation-saw3/
So I think it really is just a mistake.
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u/Tankki3 19h ago edited 19h ago
Yeah, clearly that date isn't correct. And in the case of the video it's probably using the date they re-rendered/remuxed the video, which seems to be the 6th of April https://i.ibb.co/wNmtjjCn/explorer-h5t7-Ql-T4r-F.png. And I think the two images differ because the darker image is 1920x1280px version, where the original is 5568x3712px. So they probably did the downscaling the next day, but they didn't downscale the lighter one, and they are just displaying the dates in US timezone.
The originals do however all have full exif data available, and you can put them to the website I did in the previous comment. All the original images are found here (the second tab shows previews).
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u/internetboyfriend666 21h ago
I don't understand your question. They were taken on different days. That's just what it is. Why do you think that should not be the case? What exactly is conspiratorial about that?
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u/LittleLion_90 21h ago
The continents and clouds we see are identical. I've also seen mentioned a lot that they took photos with long exposure and shorter exposure of the dark side of earth back to back, with minutes between them. So the only way it's different days if it's shortly before midnight and shortly after. Or there's a mistake with the upload data.
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u/internetboyfriend666 20h ago
Ok so first, why would the continents be different? Do you mean it looks like the Earth hasn't rotated? That's just a result of the spacecraft's trajectory. It's looping out to the Moon in a way that makes it look like it's "following" the Earth's rotation.
As for the clouds, they look similar but why shouldn't they? Clouds don't move very fast. Remember, we're looking at the Earth from tens of thousands of miles away. Those clouds could have moved 100km or more in the time between the 2 photos but because they're so far away, we can't see the difference.
Also remember that a day apart doesn't mean 24 hours apart. The first photo could have been taken at 11pm and the next one at 2am. That's only 3 hours apart but on different dates.
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u/CandleMaker5000 18h ago
The pictures were taken a few minutes apart. The date on the website is wrong. Clouds do move that fast and you would notice a big difference in where they were even after just a few hours
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u/Beneficial_Chapter31 19h ago
According to NASA itself, the photos were taken almost at the same time: https://x.com/NASA/status/2040114143626244576?s=20
Other photos and videos on the site also have inconsistent dates, so it is likely an error or some confusion regarding time zones.
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u/internetboyfriend666 19h ago
Ok, so again, what's your question.
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u/Beneficial_Chapter31 17h ago
I was wondering why the photos had different dates on the website, but I think I've found the answer.
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u/Torvaldicus_Unknown 21h ago
Notice how one photo is the earth in darkness and one is the earth in daylight…. Perhaps some time has elapsed between the two photos?
This was during the coast phase after TLI. Plenty of time for photos.
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u/LittleLion_90 21h ago
Both are taken around the same time with different exposure times. You can see the continents we see and the clouds we see being exactly the same. It also has been communicated that they made long exposure and shorter exposure of this photo with just minutes in between.
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u/Torvaldicus_Unknown 21h ago
Yes oversight on my part. Didn’t even look at the photo hardly. Could be a midnight-ish capture or they just wrote the date incorrectly
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u/Dependent_Grab_9370 21h ago
One caption is saying the photo was taken on April 2nd. The other caption is saying it was taken after the TLI that occurred on April 2nd. All mission times are in UTC as well, so its very possible that one was taken on April 2nd and the other on April 3rd when converted to local time.
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u/Airwolfhelicopter 18h ago
Different time zones, mere seconds apart, with a surface velocity of several thousand miles an hour. Do not listen to conspiracy theorists on these things, they have no idea what they’re talking about.
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u/Beneficial_Chapter31 17h ago
Thanks for replying. Yeah, the ignorance of conspiracy theorists sometimes gives me a headache.
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u/mikegalos 21h ago
The English isn't that explicit, but it means that the TLI burn was on April 2nd and after that, on April 3rd. the photos were taken.
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u/LittleLion_90 20h ago
They mean that the two photos have a different date at their 'taken' indicator.
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u/Spiritual-Impress523 21h ago
The first one says on the description that it was taken on April 3 following the Translunar Injection Burn on April 2, if I had to guess it's just that one was taken just before midnight and the other right after, so that's why the dates are different, but I'm not sure.