Artemis II astronauts orbited the moon

For the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, humans visited the Moon. On April 6, four astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II mission orbited the far side of the Moon, taking them the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth.

When they broke the distance record of 400,171 kilometers set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970, mission commander Reid Wiseman made it clear that this flight was just the beginning. “Most importantly, we have chosen this moment to challenge this and the next generation to make sure this record does not last long,” he said during NASA’s live broadcast of the flight. The Artemis astronauts also created two suggested names for the newly found craters: Integrity, after the Orion capsule that carried them around the moon, and Carroll, after Wiseman’s late wife.

During the flyby, the astronauts alternated between staying by the windows to observe and photograph the moon and staying in the Orion cabin to stay in touch with mission control in Houston, Texas. Crew members include NASA astronauts Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

As the capsule orbited the Moon, the Sun appeared smaller in the sky than the Moon, allowing for a solar eclipse as seen on Earth. As with a typical solar eclipse, the astronauts had to put on dark glasses to look at the Sun and observe its outermost layer, the corona. Their unique advantage, unencumbered by atmospheric distortion, could allow them to capture details that would be difficult to discern from the ground.

Of course, they also captured many such details on the surface of the Moon itself. During the flyby, they highlighted the surprising variety of colors on the lunar surface: while much of it is gray as seen from Earth, there are areas that look green, brown and even orange up close due to chemical changes in the rocks and dust. “It’s amazing how quickly it changes as we move around the far side of the moon,” Hansen said.

While circling the moon, the crew was able to look into areas that the human eye had never directly seen before. They spent most of their time observing the terminator, the line between day and night where stark shadows bring the terrain into sharp relief. “There’s just so much magic in Terminator – islands of light, valleys that look like black holes [where] if you walked into some you’d drop right into the center of the moon, it’s just so visually captivating,” Glover said.

Looking at the topography up close, the astronauts also expressed that they were struck by the idea of ​​what it would be like to walk on the lunar surface. “The truth is, the moon really is its own body in space — it’s not just a poster in the sky going around, it’s a real place,” Koch said.

The closest the capsule came was about 6,545 kilometers from the lunar surface. This is the closest humans will get to the moon until the Artemis IV mission, planned for 2028, which will include a landing.

Now that Orion has orbited the Moon, its journey back to Earth begins. The astronauts will arrive home on April 10 and plunge into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Work will then begin to analyze all their notes, photographs and scientific observations, in preparation for the rest of the Artemis program to continue peace.

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