Far facet of the Moon pictured for the primary time in Artemis II mission
Incredible pictures of the far side of the Moon have been captured for the first time.
The White House has released the first photo taken from the far side of the Moon. The stunning NASA pictures, taken aboard the Orion spacecraft, shows Earth gradually disappearing beneath the Moon’s horizon.
“Humanity, from the other side. First photo from the far side of the Moon. Captured from Orion as Earth dips beyond the lunar horizon,” the picture, dated April 6, was captioned on a post on X. It is the first time ever that humans have directly observed the Moon’s entire far side with their own eyes. The four Artemis 2 astronauts made history on Monday after venturing further into space than any humans have ever gone.
(Image: NASA)
The crew were so near the Moon that it appeared about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length, according to NASA. They were around 252,757 miles from Earth.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen captured a series of photos of the Moon’s rugged terrain, sprawling impact craters and vast, dark plains.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen spent hours taking photographs and gathering notes about surface features on the Moon during the flyby. They became the first people to see the lunar far side, which is not visible from Earth.
Astronauts were unable to view much of the Moon’s far side during Apollo missions because of the paths and timing of their flights. Now, the four Artemis II astronauts have become trailblazers for all of humanity.
(Image: NASA/AFP via Getty Images)
Astronaut Glover radioed to Mission Control: “Boy, I am loving the terminator. There’s just so much magic in the terminator — the islands of light, the valleys that look like black holes. You’d fall straight to the center of the Moon if you stepped in some of those. It’s just so visually captivating.”
Koch said: “When we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common. Everything we need, Earth provides. And that is somewhat of a miracle and one that you can’t truly know until you’ve had the perspective of the other.”
NASA plans to publicly release the full set of Moon photos taken by the Artemis II astronauts. However, because of downlink limitations, the bulk will not be retrieved and processed until after the astronauts return to Earth.
