Artemis II is returning home after breaking the record for the farthest distance traveled by humans from Earth and setting the stage for a manned lunar landing.

Nasa has released the first photographs taken by the Artemis II astronauts during their fly-by of the Moon. The first image, above, shows an 'Earthset' as the astronauts glimpsed our home planet peeking out beyond a cratered lunar landscape.

The four astronauts — NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen — spent Monday’s seven-hour lunar flyby taking photos and making observations from the Orion spacecraft, which they named Integrity.

The White House and NASA released imagery captured by the cameras of the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission.

NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft’s main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the moon on April 2, 2026 on Orion’s second day of its mission. (Courtesy/NASA)

The Artemis II astronauts witnessed a solar eclipse from space during their historic flyby over the moon, a sight few have seen in person.

Most people never get to experience a total solar eclipse, when the moon blots out the disk of the sun and reveals its fiery outermost atmospheric layer, or corona. “Seconds after the sun set behind

Watch a stunning time-lapse captured by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft as it witnesses a lunar eclipse from deep space. See the Earth, Moon, and shadow align in a rare cosmic perspective you can’t experience from the ground.