The Artemis II mission successfully performed a lunar flyby, coming within 4,067 miles of the moon’s surface. The crew, consisting of four astronauts including Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen, reached an estimated 252,756 miles from Earth, breaking Apollo 13’s record for the farthest humans have traveled into space.
During the seven-hour flyby, the astronauts took around 10,000 photos of the lunar surface and witnessed “Earthset,” or Earth appear to set behind the moon. They spotted craters, clouds over Australia and Oceania, and rings around the Orientale Basin, one of the moon’s youngest large impact craters.
The crew also observed a solar eclipse from the Orion capsule, seeing parts of the sun’s outer atmosphere and planets like Mars, Venus, and Saturn. After the flyby, Commander Wiseman thanked NASA for an “exciting observing program” that provided “human experience moments.”
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/07/science/artemis-2-lunar-flyby-images-earthset