The International Space Station offered a rare view of the supermoon as Dmitry Petelin captured a sequence that shows the full Moon glowing through thin clouds and then fading into the night. The footage, registered by TASS, gives observers on Earth a fresh sense of how the Moon looks when it sits unusually close to our planet.
Observers could track this spectacle on the night of July 4 as the 25 second clip unfolds. The Moon first peeks through a veil of clouds, then gradually slips from sight, creating a quiet and intimate moment in space above Russia and beyond.
A supermoon occurs when a full Moon coincides with the Moon’s closest approach to Earth in its elliptical orbit. This year the full Moon reached its peak at 14:41 Moscow time on July 3, and the satellite was near perigee on July 5 at 01:29 Moscow time, shaping the dramatic appearance seen by viewers and captured by astronauts aboard the ISS.
Earlier, at the end of June, Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin spent more than six hours in space to complete a major task. They installed a high speed radio and technical information transmission system, known as RSPI-M, on the Zvezda service module. The team managed to complete their work ahead of schedule, even as they faced unexpected challenges during the operation, demonstrating careful planning and steady teamwork in a demanding environment.
A photo gallery is available to illustrate how the supermoon appeared in Russia in 2022, with images credited to Newspapers.ru. This collection provides a historical contrast to the current observations and highlights the enduring interest in celestial events seen from space.
In related space affairs, Paul Godfrey, a former head of the United Kingdom Space Command, suggested that in the coming decades China could begin mining on the Moon and on asteroids. The idea reflects ongoing discussions about resource utilization in near-Earth space and the evolving landscape of international space activity.