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narmiouhyesterday at 10:43 PM2 repliesview on HN

I would imagine since they are not circling the earth, that there will be pull of gravity and the camera would start to move relative to the spacecraft. But may not fast enough for a short exposure


Replies

dotancohentoday at 12:18 AM

The gravity of the Earth (and moon, and everything else) is uniform (i.e. no gradient) on the scale of things the size of that capsule at the distance that capsule is from them, on the order of time of the exposure of that photograph. So the gravity (from any source) will pull on the spacecraft and on the camera in the same fashion.

To fully answer the question, the moon's gravitational gradient does pull on the Earth, the ocean closest to the moon, and the ocean furthest from the moon differently. But those are objects separated by thousands of kilometers, having hours of gravitational influence acting upon them.

gus_massatoday at 1:41 AM

Once you are out of the atmosphere and turn off your thrusters, you are on "fee fall" and the gravity on the camera, you and the spaceship produce the same acceleration and they cancel and it looks exactly like "zero gravity". It doesn't matter if you are in orbit around the Earth, going to the Moon.