Artemis IIs photo haul of the Earth and moon doesnt disappoint

Artemis II astronauts spent Monday rounding the moon's edge, digital cameras in hand, snapping views of craters, an eclipse, and a blue marble rising and setting in deep space.

Inside NASA's Orion spacecraft, Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen took turns at the windows like kids on their first plane ride.

They spent about seven hours rotating through observation shifts on the sixth day of the mission, swapping lenses, calling out features, and firing off photos as the spacecraft arced around the far side of the moon.

At closest approach, they skimmed within about 4,000 miles of the lunar surface — close enough for every ridge, crater, and shadow to snap into sharp relief. The astronauts surprised mission control with descriptions of the surface appearing more brown than gray, with even some splotches of green and snowy white.

The latest Artemis II images don't just revisit Apollo — they mark a leap beyond it. Apollo crews captured their own iconic shots of the Earth and moon, but Artemis II delivered longer looks, sharper detail, and a front-row seat to the experience. Their extended total solar eclipse, for example, was a moment that earlier NASA missions could only catch in passing, if at all. That's the difference between spaceflight half a century ago and the 10-day Artemis journey that launched April 1.

"At one point towards the end of the images of my time in Window 3, I just had an overwhelming sense of being moved by looking at the moon," Koch said. "It lasted just a second or two, and I actually couldn't even make it happen again, but something just drew me in suddenly to the lunar landscape, and it became real." 

The moon didn't exactly sit still for its portrait. Sunlight slid low across the surface, throwing long, dramatic shadows along the terminator — that line between light and shadow across the lunar face — turning familiar terrain into something theatrical. When it was Glover's turn at the window, he couldn't stop studying the ominous boundary.

"There's just so much magic in the terminator," he said, "the islands of light, the valleys that would look like black holes [that] you'd fall straight to the center of the moon if you stepped in."

The massive Mare Orientale basin unfurled in rings of mountains, its dark, hardened lava floor a testament to ancient eruptions. The crew suggested names — Carroll and Integrity — for smaller "fresh" craters, to honor Wiseman's late wife and their spacecraft.

"Something that's truly awesome up here is we now have the moon and the Earth in Window 3  simultaneously, and the moon is a gibbous, and the Earth is a crescent," Wiseman said. "I'm guessing in about 45 minutes, we'll have two identical crescents as we change our position in the universe." 

That made Kelsey Young, head of Artemis's science flight operations, literally giggle from mission control in Houston. 

"That is pretty darn cool, thank you," she said.

Then came the stark perspective shift.

As Orion slipped behind the moon, Earth began to sink. In one frame, it hangs as a thin crescent, clouds swirling over the Pacific, the rest of the planet swallowed by night. Minutes later, the crew lost contact with Earth entirely, cut off for about 50 minutes as the moon itself blocked radio signals. 

And, perhaps just to raise the stakes, the sky went dark.

From their vantage point, the astronauts watched the moon swallow the sun in a total solar eclipse that stretched almost an hour. The sun's corona glowed, stars pricked through the darkness, and even Venus made a cameo. But the backlit moon stole the show. 

Not long after, Earth came back — this time rising. A pale blue crescent emerged from beyond the bumpy lunar surface in a historic Earthrise.

NASA says the images will help scientists better understand how giant asteroid impacts shape worlds, and how the moon built its battered surface over billions of years. Those craters, ever etched in its surface, log the history of the solar system. 

But they also do something more profound: make us cherish home.

"The truth is the moon really is its own body in the universe. It's not just a poster in the sky that goes by," Koch said. "When we have that perspective, and we compare it to our home of the Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common, everything we need, the Earth provides, and that, in and of itself, is somewhat of a miracle."

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UPDATE: Apr. 7, 2026, 2:04 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with an additional quote from pilot Victor Glover.