From: Scientific American
‘Moon Joy’ and the Overview Effect—How Views from Space Change Us
April 13, 2026
“The moon we are looking at is not the moon you see from Earth whatsoever.” That’s how Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch described our natural satellite as the mission’s spacecraft drew closer to the moon on April 4.
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During these experiences, our perspective of the world seems to zoom out or to flip to a different angle, adds Michelle Shiota, a social psychologist at Arizona State University. This feeling tends to make us feel small and to put our daily problems in perspective. The “zoom out” of going to space is probably “the greatest version of that experience that humans are capable of,” Shiota says.
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