Artemis II astronaut describes “the most unique thing” he saw on the far side of the moon 02:24It’s been a little less than a week since the Artemis II crew splashed down off the coast of San Diego, and as the four astronauts adjust to life back on Earth, they’ve also had time to reflect on the scope of their trip around the moon, what their favorite parts of the mission were and what it all meant.Speaking with “CBS Evening News,” commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, and pilot Victor Glover, shared vivid memories of seeing the striking features of the moon up close.AdvertisementAdvertisement”For me, it was the terminator,” Glover said of his favorite part of the mission, referring to the barrier between night and day on the moon. He spoke about how the transition from light to dark highlighted the topography of the moon in a way he wasn’t expecting. “I could have spent just the entire time describing that part,” he said.Koch said the best thing she saw was the outline of the mountains of the moon on its horizon.”Because there’s no atmosphere, you could see the outline of terrain, you could imagine yourself climbing it, adventuring and exploring there, it was truly awesome,” she said.Hansen, meanwhile, described what he said looked like a “handprint” on the far side of the moon, telling CBS News, “Reid and I spent a lot of time talking about this handprint on the backside of the moon.”AdvertisementAdvertisementFor Wiseman, it was seeing a solar eclipse from space.”It was the most unique thing and the most unexpected thing I think that I saw for sure on this entire mission,” he said. “It was beautiful and just completely unexpected. My brain could not process what I was looking at out the window. The entire moon in a dark matte black sphere right outside our window.”The moon, seen here backlit by the sun during a solar eclipse on April 6, 2026, is photographed by one of the cameras on the Orion spacecraft’s solar array wings. Orion is visible in the foreground on the left. / Credit: NASA via Getty ImagesBut despite all those fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime sights, the crew is still thrilled to be back home.”I don’t think you appreciate home and gravity and plumbing and showers until you leave the comfort of those things,” Glover said, adding, “I mean, my favorite thing to do is to just go home and sit in my sweatpants.”AdvertisementAdvertisement”We have been doing lots of science and medical and strength training,” since returning, he said. “So we’ve actually been pretty busy since we’ve been back. And when I do get home, it’s just nice to walk in the door and see my dog and see my wife and my kids and just plop down on the couch.”For Koch, she said the everyday has “taken on a new light for me.””When I go to the beach now, I look up at the blue sky and imagine what it looks like from really, really far away, where it wasn’t an absolute, it wasn’t just a background of everything we see, it was small, compared to the universe around it,” she said.The crew also reflected on what their trip around the moon meant …
