The Artemis II astronauts are now forever linked to Apollo 8. One day after the historic lunar flyby, NASA released on Tuesday the 7th new impressive images taken by the American-Canadian crew.
The four astronauts recreated the famous Earthrise photo (“birth of Earth”), recorded by Apollo 8 in 1968 – and which became a symbol of the modern environmental movement, with its own version: Earthset (“setting of Earth”), which shows the planet setting behind the Moon’s surface.
In addition to the Earthset, the astronauts also captured a total solar eclipse, which occurred when the Moon blocked the Sun from the crew’s point of view.
The three Apollo 8 astronauts were the first visitors to the Moon, by orbiting it on Christmas Eve in 1968. Artemis II, carried out 58 years later, marks NASA’s first return to the Moon with astronauts since 1972.
This spaceflight is considered an important step toward the aims of a lunar landing by another crew within two years.
On Monday, the 6th, the team aboard the Orion capsule flew over the far side of the Moon and had the opportunity to photograph features of Earth’s natural satellite never before seen by human eyes.
As a result, some important milestones were surpassed, such as reaching the greatest distance anyone has ever been from Earth, surpassing 400,171 kilometers recorded during the Apollo 13 mission.
Moreover, while flying over the Moon, the mission also had the first Black astronaut (Victor Glover), the first woman (Christina Koch) and the first non-American astronaut (the Canadian Jeremy Hansen) to orbit Earth’s natural satellite.
Now, the three astronauts, commanded by Reid Wiseman, are on their way back home, with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for Friday the 10th. Meanwhile, scientists at the Mission Control Center in Houston are analyzing the stream of Moon images transmitted by the spacecraft.
