When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.In this fully illuminated view of the moon, taken by the Artemis 2 mission during its lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, the near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth), is visible on the right. It is identifiable by the dark splotches that cover its surface. . | Credit: NASAArtemis 2’s historic, action-packed lunar flyby is in the books.Artemis 2 looped around the moon’s far side today (April 6), in a nearly seven-hour encounter that gave its four astronauts views of Earth’s nearest neighbor that human eyes had never seen before.The Artemis 2 crewmembers also observed a total solar eclipse from beyond the moon and set a big spaceflight record, traveling farther from their home planet than anyone ever had before.A new distance record for humanityArtemis 2 commander Reid Wiseman gazes at the moon ahead of NASA’s historic lunar flyby on April 6, 2026. | Credit: NASAArtemis 2 is the first mission to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) since Apollo 17 did so way back in 1972. The current flight launched on April 1, sending NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen aloft on board an Orion capsule that the astronauts named “Integrity.”AdvertisementAdvertisementIntegrity arrived in lunar space early this morning. The capsule journeyed into the moon’s “sphere of influence,” the region where lunar gravity is stronger than that of Earth, at 12:37 a.m. EDT (0437 GMT).About 13.5 hours later, the four Artemis 2 astronauts crossed another threshold, getting more than 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) from Earth. That was our species’ old distance record, set in April 1970 by the three astronauts of NASA’s Apollo 13 mission.And Integrity continued cruising outward for about five more hours, reaching a maximum distance from Earth of about 252,756 miles (406,771 km) just after 7:00 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) — a mark the Artemis 2 crew hopes gets broken soon.”We, most importantly, choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived,” Hansen said shortly after Artemis 2 surpassed Apollo 13.AdvertisementAdvertisementThere were some touching moments as well. As the flyby began, the crew asked to name an unnamed moon crater they observed after their ship Integrity.More in ScienceAnother crater, they proposed, should be named Carroll in honor of Carroll Taylor Wiseman, wife of Artemis 2 commander Reid Wiseman, who tragically died in 2020 from cancer.”Integrity and Carroll Crater, loud and clear,” Mission Control replied.Eyes on the moon — for scienceBut all of this action was just a warmup for the mission’s main event — the flyby.The encounter officially began at 2:45 p.m. EDT (1845 GMT), when Integrity was about 10,700 miles (17,220 km) from the lunar surface. And it was not a sightseeing cruise for the Artemis 2 astronauts; they studied the moon’s surface for hours, following a detailed checklist drawn up by the mission science team.AdvertisementAdvertisementAfter all, the flyby was a rare research opportunity. People hadn’t viewed the moon up close in more than 50 years, and Artemis 2’s unique “free return” trajectory — in which it looped around the moon without entering lunar orbit — afforded unprecedented views of the gray, cratered surface.What’s more, the human eye is very good at picking up subtle variations in color and texture — better than robotic spacecraft cameras, in fact. So, the Artemis 2 crew could conceivably detect details that help scientists better understand lunar geology and evolution, and help planners map out future crewed missions to the moon’s surface.In this fully illuminated view of the moon, taken by the Artemis 2 mission during its lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, the near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth), is visible on the right. It is identifiable by the dark splotches that cover its surface. | Credit: NASAOne of the astronauts’ key observation targets was the Orientale Basin, a 600-mile-wide (965 km) impact crater known as the “Grand Canyon of the moon.” It straddles the line between the moon’s near and far sides and, until Artemis 2, had never been seen in sunlight by human eyes, according to NASA.The astronauts were therefore assiduous in their descriptions of the crater. Take, for example, Wiseman’s words on one of Orientale’s prominent features.AdvertisementAdvertisement”The annular ring, which I think everybody kind of describes as like a pair of lips or a kiss on the far side of the moon, from here is very circular in nature,” Wiseman, the Artemis 2 commander, told Mi …
