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NASA has released its first batch of photos taken by the Artemis II astronauts during their historic flyby around the far side of the moon.
The first image, dubbed "Earthset," shows our planet disappearing behind the moon's pockmarked face and is reminiscent of the "Earthrise" photo taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders in 1968. An advancing shadow delineates the night side of our planet, where billions of humans slept as the Artemis II crew made history.
"Earthset". The Earth disappears as the Artemis II crew dip behind the moon's far side.
(Image credit: NASA)
Not to be outdone, a second new image shows a stunning solar eclipse witnessed as the astronauts dipped behind the moon — granting them roughly 40 minutes of complete radio silence to soak in the view.
"When we were on the far side of the moon, looking back at Earth, you really felt like you weren't in a capsule," said Artemis II mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. "You'd been transported to the far side of the moon. And it really just bent your mind. It was an extraordinary human experience. We're so grateful for it."
Wisps of light from the sun's corona and Earth's shine appear around the lunar disc as the Artemis II crew drift in totality behind its dark side.
(Image credit: NASA)
The Artemis II crewmembers are the first people in history to view a solar eclipse from behind the moon. Totality — the complete blocking of the sun by the lunar disk — lasted about one hour. During that time, the astronauts reported seeing bright planets (including Mars, Venus and Saturn) alongside the stars.
The faint glow of Earth's light and wisps of the sun's corona, which they described as "baby hairs," appeared on the edges of the lunar disk. (To safely view the sun's reappearance, the team wore solar eclipse glasses, just as we do on Earth.)
"This continues to be unreal," Artemis II pilot Victor Glover said at one point during the seven-hour flyby. "The sun has gone behind the moon, and the corona is still visible, and it's bright and creates a halo almost around the entire moon. The Earth is so bright out there, and the moon is just hanging in front of us."
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Half of the far side of the moon in total solar eclipse.
(Image credit: NASA)
"You'd fall straight to the center of the moon"
The flyby made Glover, Hansen, mission specialist Christina Koch and commander Reid Wiseman the first people in history to see the entire lunar far side — a feat that was impossible during the Apollo missions due to those missions' flight paths.
"Boy, I am loving the terminator," Glover called down to mission control, referring to the dividing line between day and light on the moon. "There's just so much magic in the terminator — the islands of light, the valleys that look like black holes. You'd fall straight to the center of the moon if you stepped in some of those. It's just so visually captivating."
Low-angle sunlight casts long shadows near the moon's terminator line — the division between lunar day and night.
(Image credit: NASA)
Near the terminator line, the team also discovered two new lunar craters, which they asked to be named Integrity, after the crew capsule's official call sign, and Carroll, in honor of Wiseman's late wife.
At the 10 o’clock position of the Orientale basin, the two small craters that the Artemis II crew suggested be named Integrity and Carroll are visible.
During the flyby, the crew marveled over green and brown hues across the moon's surface, documenting the previously unseen craters and spotting new ones being made in the form of multiple impact flashes from meteors crashing into the lunar surface. All of these observations and the images they hand-captured with smartphones were fed back to NASA's lunar and planetary scientists to investigate important clues on how the moon and Earth came to be.
The flyby swung the astronauts out a maximum distance of 252,760 miles (406,777 kilometers) from Earth, breaking the previous record for the farthest humans in history by roughly 4,100 miles (6,600 km).
Much like the two dozen other astronauts who have been to the moon, the crew expressed that they felt changed by what they saw.
The four Atemis II astronauts were the first humans to view a solar eclipse from the far side of the moon with the naked eye (protected by eclipse glasses, of course).
(Image credit: NASA)
"When we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common," Koch said. "Everything we need, Earth provides. And that is somewhat of a miracle and one that you can't truly know until you've had the perspective of the other."
Ben Turner is a U.K. based writer and editor at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
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