Artemis 2 Crew Shares 12,000 Photos From Historic Moon Trip

Four astronauts recently completed something no human had done since 1972: they left Earth's immediate neighborhood and circled the moon.

NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada's Jeremy Hansen launched on Artemis 2 on April 1 and returned safely on April 10. But while their destination was the moon, their cameras kept pointing back at the place they came from.

The crew just released 12,000 photos from their journey, and a new timelapse video stitches together some of the most breathtaking shots. The footage shows our blue planet sweeping into view, then fading into darkness from the astronauts' perspective. Tiny dots of satellites dance above Earth's rim, and shimmering auroras glow at the planet's edge.

One image stands out above the rest. On April 6, the crew captured an "Earthset" while flying past the moon's far side, showing just a thin crescent of our home planet glowing above the lunar surface. White clouds shine over Australia and the Pacific Ocean, while the 40-mile-wide Ohm Crater sits near the moon's horizon.

The photo echoes the famous "Earthrise" image that Apollo 8's Bill Anders captured on Christmas 1968, when astronauts first saw Earth rising above the moon's landscape. That single photograph helped spark the environmental movement by showing how fragile and precious our world looks from space.

Why This Inspires

After five decades of staying close to home, humans are reaching for the moon again. The Artemis program plans to land astronauts on the lunar surface as soon as 2028, if the landing systems and spacesuits are ready in time.

But these photos remind us that exploring space isn't just about reaching new destinations. It's about gaining perspective on the one planet we all share. When astronauts look back at Earth from hundreds of thousands of miles away, they see no borders, no divisions, just one beautiful home floating in the darkness.

The next Artemis mission will test docking operations in low Earth orbit in 2027, bringing us one step closer to walking on the moon again.

These 12,000 photos are more than just pretty pictures: they're love letters to Earth, written from the greatest distance humans have traveled in half a century.