Artemis 2 Astronauts’ Epic iPhone Photos Are All… Selfies?

All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Gizmodo may earn an affiliate commission. Over the weekend, the astronauts on NASA’s Artemis 2 mission snapped some of the most evocative images of Earth from space. And they were shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, though not with the lens you’re probably expecting. What is left for the “shot on iPhone” advertising to showcase, if not the vast, infinite darkness of space, or at least the pale blue dot we terrestrial beings call home? The photos themselves are stunning due to the soft lighting of mission specialist Christina Koch’s and Commander Reid Wiseman’s faces compared to the magnificence of the planet from outside Earth’s orbit. And what’s more, these are selfies. Wiseman and Koch took their photos of the Orion spacecraft’s main cabin window with the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s 18-megapixel front camera. Apple upgraded last year’s iPhone 17 lineup with the ability to shoot horizontal selfies while holding the phone vertically. While the average viewer may assume these photos were from the phone’s main 48-megapixel “fusion” camera, it’s clear the good front sens