Nasa's Artemis II astronauts have described the powerful emotions they felt while soaring over the moon, capturing images of impact craters, cracks, and ridges as they began their journey back to Earth. The four crew members worked in pairs at the Orion capsule windows, photographing the lunar surface and the Earth rising from behind the moon.
Among the eagerly awaited images are those of a solar eclipse, parts of the 590-mile-wide Orientale impact basin never before seen with the naked eye, and potential faint layers of moondust. The astronauts reported brown, green, and orange hues on the greyish landscape, which further images may help explain.
Christina Koch, the first woman to fly around the moon, said she felt an overwhelming sense of being moved while observing the lunar surface. 'Something just threw me suddenly into the lunar landscape and it became real,' she said. Victor Glover, the first black man to travel beyond low Earth orbit, added: 'It was very moving to look out the window.'
The crew swung around the far side of the moon on Monday, cutting contact with mission control for 40 minutes. During that time, Glover recorded scientific observations, saying, 'That is actually the time when we were the farthest from Earth and the closest to the moon.' The Orion spacecraft is now hurtling back toward Earth, with a splashdown near San Diego scheduled for Friday at 8:07pm US eastern time.
On Monday, the crew set a new record for the farthest humans have travelled from Earth, reaching 252,756 miles, surpassing Apollo 13's 1970 record. They came within 4,070 miles of the lunar surface. In a phone call with Donald Trump, Jeremy Hansen noted the stark difference between the moon's near and far sides due to Earth's gravitational pull.
Reid Wiseman described witnessing an eclipse, saying, 'We could see the corona of the sun, and then we could see the planet train line up, and Mars.' He added, 'All of us commented how excited we are to watch this nation, and this planet become a two-planet species.'
