Nasa has released the first photographs taken by the Artemis II crew of the far side of the Moon, as the astronauts begin their journey back to Earth.
The first image shows an “Earthset”, with the Earth suspended in the darkness behind a cratered lunar landscape, while another shows a spectacular solar eclipse with the Moon blocking out the Sun.
The crew of the Artemis II became the first humans to see the far-side of the moon during the mission as they passed behind it during the lunar flyby - while satellites have photographed the hidden hemisphere before, no human eyes had seen its vast craters and lava plains.
The Orion spacecraft also broke the record for human travel when they reached 252,756 miles away from Earth on Monday evening, and briefly lost contact with Earth for around 40 minutes as expected as they passed behind the moon.
Astronaut Jeremey Hansen said: "As we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever travelled from planet Earth, we do so in honouring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration."
EARTHSET.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 7, 2026
April 6, 2026.
Humanity, from the other side. First photo from the far side of the Moon. Captured from Orion as Earth dips beyond the lunar horizon. Photo: NASA pic.twitter.com/ZEBTQA85TY
Re-establishing communication after the outage, mission specialist Christina Koch said: "It is so great to hear from Earth again. We will always choose Earth, we will always choose each other."
The photographs were taken during this six-hour flyby, with the crew taking images with a number of digital cameras, as well as producing sketches and recording audio descriptions of what they saw.
Nasa has said that the Earthrise photograph was captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41pm EDT (11.41pm BST) on Monday, but has not confirmed which of the astronauts took the photographs.
Nasa said: "The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. On Earth's day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region.
"In the foreground, Ohm crater has terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks. Central peaks form in complex craters when the lunar surface, liquefied on impact, splashes upwards during the crater's formation.”
Commander Reid Wiseman told President Donald Trump: "We saw sights that no human has ever seen, not even Apollo, and that was amazing for us."
Pilot Victor Glover described seeing the lunar eclipse as "sci-fi" and "unreal", and said that there were “no adjectives” to capture the experience.
Describing the view of the corona of the Sun, Glover said: "This continues to be unreal. The Sun has gone behind the Moon and the corona is still visible, and it's bright and creates a halo almost around the entire moon.”
The crew asked Nasa mission control to name two of the craters that the team observed - one Integrity after the name given to the Orion capsule by the astronauts, and the other after Wiseman's late wife Carroll, who died in 2020 after a battle with cancer.
The astronauts are now on their way back to Earth, with their 10-day journey due to end with a splashdown on April 10, in the Pacific Ocean off the Californian coast.
