On April 23, NASA launched a prototype solar sail into orbit around our planet, a technology that could fundamentally change how we think about spacecraft motion. Then on August 29, the agency confirmed that the sail had been successfully deployed in space. But we haven’t had official photographic evidence of that for a while.

Now, as of September 5, we’re actually doing just that. NASA has released the first image of the open solar sail, officially called the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, and said the spacecraft launching the sail will continue to send back more images and data over time.

The image itself may seem a bit confusing, and that’s partly due to the fact that the spacecraft is slowly tumbling through space. The dip occurred because the spacecraft didn’t undergo any orientation control after deployment, NASA said in a statement. So this behavior is expected, the team says. Once operators have collected enough data to paint a picture of how the sail and the composite booms holding it are performing, they will apply attitude control and stabilize the spacecraft. Hopefully, once it stabilizes, we’ll have images that are easier to decode. But in the meantime, let’s talk about what we can actually see in this image.

As stated in NASA’s statement, it is first worth remembering that there are four wide-angle cameras at the center of the spacecraft, which attach the sail.

At the bottom of the photo, a camera shows “reflecting sail quadrants supported by composite jibs,” while at the top of the photo we see the back surface of one of the ship’s solar panels. Most spacecraft are equipped with solar panels because that’s how they’re powered: sunlight.

“The five sets of marks on the booms near the spacecraft are reference marks that indicate when the sail is fully extended,” the statement said. “The booms are positioned at right angles and the solar array is rectangular but appears distorted due to the camera’s wide viewing angle.”