/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/4a/9d/4a9d4f75-eb09-40c1-a630-723e163f5f1b/art002-e-21106.jpeg)
NASA Just Uploaded More Than 12,000 Stunning Photos From the Artemis 2 Mission. Here Are a Few of Our Favorites
Key takeaways
- A crescent Earth floats beyond the moon in a gorgeous role reversal captured during the Artemis 2 mission.
- Many of the photos include the 30 lunar surface targets the crew were asked to focus on, including two ancient impact craters that’ll help scientists understand how the moon’s features change over time.
- Now, NASA has added more than 12,000 images to a database called the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
A crescent Earth floats beyond the moon in a gorgeous role reversal captured during the Artemis 2 mission. Photo ID ART002-E-21106 NASA The world watched with bated breath as NASA’s Artemis 2 mission launched last month, sending humans toward the moon for the first time since 1972. The four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft—NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with the Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—looped around our celestial companion, getting as close as 4,067 miles to its surface.
While the crew sent some thrilling photographs to Earth during the mission itself, data limits meant that the rest of the images could be delivered only via physical SD cards once the astronauts came home, according to Space.com’s Josh Dinner.
Many of the photos include the 30 lunar surface targets the crew were asked to focus on, including two ancient impact craters that’ll help scientists understand how the moon’s features change over time. But the photos also captured stunning views of Earth and a solar eclipse created when the moon blocked the sun from Orion’s perspective.