All NASA astronauts landed on the Moon during the day, a time too bright to see stars with the naked eye, and they also did not intend to photograph stars.
If you’ve ever seen old footage and photographs of Apollo astronauts walking on the Moon, you may have noticed that most of them lack stars in the background. This has led many to question the authenticity of NASA’s Apollo program, which took place from 1961 to 1972.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin standing on the Moon’s surface, with no stars in the background. (Photo: NASA).
One reason is that all astronauts landed on the Moon during the day (a day on the Moon lasts about 14 Earth days), when it is too bright to see stars with the naked eye.
“We never saw stars from the surface of the Moon or from the sunlit side of the Moon (the side always facing Earth) without looking through optical equipment,” said American astronaut Neil Armstrong at a press conference. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin agreed, “I don’t recall ever seeing any stars.”
However, humans can see stars from the Moon’s surface using optical equipment. In fact, they appear less blurry than when viewed from Earth, where the atmosphere distorts light. So why didn’t the stars appear in other photographs? This is actually a photography issue, not a space issue.
Apollo astronauts were primarily focused on photographing the Moon’s surface, as well as themselves. Therefore, they used fast shutter speeds and small apertures to capture the illuminated surface and themselves. As a result, no stars appeared in the background, much like how people do not see stars in selfies taken on Earth.
Earth and stars captured from the Moon. (Photo: NASA).
The only exception was the Apollo 16 mission, when the crew brought along a Camera/Ultraviolet Spectrograph. “The telescope on the Moon studied many star clusters as well as nebulae – clouds of gas and dust where new stars are forming,” explained NASA expert Tricia Talbert.
“The astronauts also pointed the telescope toward the Large Magellanic Cloud – a small galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. It is called a Camera/Spectrograph because it has two modes: ‘Direct Imaging’, which captures images like a regular camera, and ‘Spectroscopy’, a way to separate light to look for traces of atoms and molecules in astronomical objects,” Talbert added.
Thanks to this first telescope on the Moon, the Apollo 16 crew captured images of stars, as well as Earth, from the Moon’s surface.
During the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, when the first astronauts walked on the Moon and did not see stars clearly, astronaut Michael Collins remained alone in the command module of the spacecraft and flew behind the dark side of the Moon. There, although completely cut off from human contact, he could at least gaze upon a spectacular sight.
“I felt not fear or loneliness, but extreme anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost joy. I loved that feeling. Outside the window, I could see the stars, and that was all. Where I knew the Moon was, it was just a dark void. I could only tell the Moon was still there by the absence of stars,” Collins wrote in his book Carrying The Fire, published in 1974.
