NASA released the first batch of photographs taken by the Artemis II crew during their flyby of the moon, including a striking "Earthset" image captured on April 6, 2026, that echoes one of the most famous pictures in the history of space exploration. The four astronauts, Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, became the first humans to travel around the far side of the moon in over fifty years, and they brought receipts.
The images, shared by NASA and the White House on the social-media platform X, show Earth slipping below the lunar horizon, a solar eclipse seen from lunar orbit, and close-up views of ancient impact craters on the moon's surface. Taken together, they mark the most significant new human-captured views of the moon since the Apollo era, and a concrete return on a program that has cost American taxpayers an estimated $44 billion.
That price tag, roughly $23.8 billion for the Space Launch System rocket and $20.4 billion for the Orion deep-space spacecraft, has drawn scrutiny for years. But whatever the final accounting, the Artemis II crew is delivering something no budget line can replicate: proof that American astronauts are back in deep space, doing work that only human eyes and hands can do.
The centerpiece image shows Earth dipping beyond the moon's curved limb as the Orion spacecraft flew around the far side. NASA posted the photo on X with a direct nod to history.
"The Artemis II crew captured this view of an Earthset on April 6, 2026, as they flew around the Moon. The image is reminiscent of the iconic Earthrise image taken by astronaut Bill Anders 58 years earlier as the Apollo 8 crew flew around the Moon."
The comparison is apt. Bill Anders' 1968 "Earthrise" photograph reshaped the way humanity saw its own planet. The new Earthset image inverts the composition, Earth descending rather than rising, but carries the same weight. It was captured at 6:41 PM EDT on April 6 from the Orion spacecraft, during what NASA described as a seven-hour lunar observation period that began at 7:45 PM UK time.
A second image released by the White House showed a solar eclipse as seen from lunar orbit, the moon blocking the sun from the crew's vantage point. The White House captioned it simply: "Totality, beyond Earth." It added: "From lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few in human history have ever witnessed."
That is not hyperbole. Fewer than two dozen human beings have ever orbited the moon. The Artemis II crew just became the latest, and, by distance, the farthest.
At 6:56 PM UK time on the day of the flyby, the Artemis II crew surpassed the Apollo 13 crew's long-standing record for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. The new mark: more than 252,756 miles, roughly 406,771 kilometers. Apollo 13 had held that record since 1970.
The crew's closest approach to the moon came at 12:02 AM UK time, during a window when mission control in Houston had temporarily lost communication with the spacecraft. Contact dropped at 11:47 PM UK time, an expected consequence of flying behind the moon, and was re-acquired at 12:27 AM. For forty minutes, the four astronauts were more alone than any living person on Earth.
By 2:20 AM UK time, the flyby observation period ended and the crew began transferring imagery to the ground. What came back was worth the wait.
A third released image showed the rings of the Orientale basin, one of the moon's most prominent impact features. NASA noted that at the ten o'clock position of the basin, two smaller craters are visible, craters the crew has suggested naming "Integrity" and "Carroll."
The name Carroll carries personal meaning. Commander Reid Wiseman's late wife died of cancer in 2020. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who proposed the names to mission control, spoke carefully about the moment. As the crew described tense moments aboard Orion throughout the mission, this was one of the quieter ones.
Hansen told mission control:
"A number of years ago we started this journey... and we lost a loved one and there's a feature on a really neat place on the moon... at certain times of the Moon's transit around Earth we will be able to see this from Earth."
Mission control in Houston fell silent after the announcement. Whether the crater names receive formal approval remains an open question, NASA's statement described them only as suggestions from the crew.
Koch, for her part, offered a vivid description of the lunar surface as seen from orbit. She compared the bright, fresh impact craters scattered across the far side to something unexpectedly domestic.
"All the really bright, new craters, some of them are super tiny, most of them are pretty small, there's a couple that really stand out, obviously, and what it really looks like is a lampshade with tiny pinprick holes and the light shining through."
That kind of observation, unscripted, human, impossible to replicate from a robot, is exactly the argument for crewed spaceflight. No rover sends back metaphors.
Breitbart reported that NASA confirmed on its official Flickr page that several of the published photographs were captured using iPhone 17 Pro Max smartphones. Each of the four astronauts was equipped with a silver iPhone 17 Pro Max, along with GoPro Hero 11 and Nikon D5 cameras. The fact that consumer-grade phone cameras can now produce images from deep space worth releasing alongside professional equipment says something about how far the technology has come since Apollo.
Earlier in the mission, as the crew traveled toward the moon, NASA released images that included a modern recreation of the famous Apollo 17 "Blue Marble" photograph of Earth. The New York Post reported that the agency captioned one set of photos: "We've come so far in the last 54 years, but one thing that hasn't changed: Our home looks gorgeous from space!" Other images showed Koch and Wiseman gazing back at Earth, as well as a nighttime view of the planet lit by city lights and a thin sunlit edge.
Artemis II launched on April 1 from Kennedy Space Centre Launch Pad 39B. The mission is designed to last ten days and cover roughly 620,000 miles. The crew committed to their lunar trajectory early in the flight, marking the first crewed deep-space burn since 1972.
The mission profile called for four days to fly to the moon, a lunar flyby at a maximum altitude of 5,523 miles above the surface, and four days to return. The Orion capsule is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at approximately 25,000 miles per hour before deploying parachutes and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday.
The Washington Examiner noted that the crew completed a seven-hour lunar flyby that included views of surface features such as Vavilov Crater and the Orientale basin, views described as showing "a side of the moon never before seen by human eyes." The crew sketched what they saw, made audio recordings, and photographed the landscape below in a burst of documentation that recalled the best traditions of the Apollo program.
Artemis II is not a landing mission. Its purpose is to prove that the Orion spacecraft can carry a crew safely around the moon and back, a necessary step before NASA attempts to put astronauts on the lunar surface, a goal the agency has targeted for 2028. When NASA cleared Artemis II for launch, it did so with the understanding that every system aboard would be tested under real deep-space conditions for the first time with a human crew.
The photos released this week are more than public-relations material. They are evidence that the hardware works, the crew is performing, and the mission is on track. For a program that has weathered years of delays, cost overruns, and skepticism from both sides of the aisle, that evidence matters.
Friday's splashdown will close the books on Artemis II. But the images from the far side of the moon, Earth setting behind a barren horizon, craters named for the people left behind, will outlast the mission itself.
America went back to the moon. And this time, the pictures prove it.
