NASA's Artemis II photos will give your Xbox dashboard a serious glow-up, and I didn't even know you could do this

File this one under things I didn't even know existed (and at least I'm also not alone), but you have a lot more freedom than I thought when it comes to setting Xbox dashboard backgrounds.

A Reddit thread illuminated me to the fact, as well as showing off how incredible NASA's photos from the current Artemis II mission can make the Xbox look.

I love the Earthset photo taken while the astronauts were orbiting the Moon, as did the author of the Reddit post, and I have to say, it's a full-on 'chef's kiss' moment. If, like me, you didn't know you could do this, here's how to give your own Xbox the same glow-up.

How to use NASA photos (or any other image) as your Xbox dashboard background

I can probably count the times on one hand that I've intentionally used Microsoft Edge on my Xbox Series X, and it's still less than three. But if there's no other good reason to use it, it's a pretty stellar wallpaper tool.

Here's the process to grab the latest NASA images, but the process is the same for any other image you might want to use.

1. Open Microsoft Edge on your Xbox console.
2. Navigate to nasa.gov/images (or whatever other web page you want to grab a wallpaper from).
3. Find the image you want from the page.

4. Hover the cursor over the image you want to use.
5. Press the Menu button on your Xbox controller.
6. Choose "Set as background."
7. Wait a couple of seconds for the notification to pop up saying "Background set."

The final step is important because if you exit out of Microsoft Edge before seeing it, the background won't apply.

I don't know why I didn't even consider this would be a feature. Honestly, I forget that Microsoft Edge even exists on the console. But it has now found its forever purpose: making my dashboard look good. The Reddit thread at least makes me feel a little more comfortable in not being the only one who didn't know about this.

The thread also poked a little fun at how, using the Earthset image, you'll now be able to see ads on the Moon. "It truly is a bold new frontier. In advertising."

You can also upload images from an external USB drive to use, but it'd be nice if you could just save a bunch of custom images directly to the console to use as backgrounds as you see fit.

You can't save the image from Microsoft Edge; you can only use it as a background, so if you want to change it up regularly, it'll be a little tedious having to manually do this process over and over.

But if you didn't know, now you do. And if you did, still consider hitting up NASA for some backgrounds. I'm a changed man; this is the only way forward now for me.

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