‘The most incredible video ever captured by a phone’: NASA’s ‘Earthset’ video shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max is pure sci-fi — and Apple ads will struggle to top it

• NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman has filmed an ‘Earthset’ on an iPhone 17 Pro Max
• The footage shows the Earth ‘setting’ behind the moon
• It’s the first time we’ve seen video of this and it taken using the 8x zoom lens

It’s not every day that you see footage of the Earth setting behind the moon. But today NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman released the first video taken of that event in human history — and it was shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Posting on X, Wiseman shared a 53-second video shot through Integrity’s docking hatch window during the Artemis II mission, showing the Earth slowly disappear behind the moon.

It’s a stunning clip, and all the more impressive for having been shot on an iPhone — in fact, it would make a great advert for Apple’s phones.

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A once in a lifetime scene

Wiseman claims the footage is uncropped and uncut, with “8x zoom which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye.” We’re slightly confused by that claim as 8x zoom on this phone should be around a 200mm equivalent focal length, whereas the human eye is usually considered to be between 40-50mm.

Still, this is no time to get bogged down in technicalities — Wiseman described the scene as something that’s “only one chance in this lifetime” and “like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos.” The astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, meanwhile, said it was “quite possibly the most incredible video ever captured by a phone. Bravo.”

While this is among the more impressive scenes to come from the Artemis II mission, we’ve seen plenty of other shots and videos too — including some shot on iPhone.

Sadly, with the Artemis II mission now concluded there might not be too many more iPhone photos and videos to see from it, but it makes us all the more excited for what’s to come on future NASA launches.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.