‘No human mind should have to go through this’: Artemis II crew recalls the surreal moment Earth disappeared — Space Photo of the Week

This striking image shows a crescent-shaped Earth slipping behind the Moon’s rugged edge. This “Earth set” was witnessed by the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission and is likely the highlight of the first lunar orbit mission since 1972. Shortly after this image was taken, the Orion spacecraft passed the far side of the moon and began a 31-minute communications blackout with mission control in Houston, Texas.

In the foreground is a clear lunar surface, beyond which the Earth floats subtly in space, with Australia and Oceania disappearing during the day and the rest disappearing into the night. It was a sight that moved the crew.

“I’m really getting chills right now. My palms are sweating just thinking about it,” Capt. Reed Wiseman said from the Orion capsule during a live press conference on Wednesday, April 8. “It’s amazing to see your home planet disappear behind the moon. You see the atmosphere. You see the moon’s terrain projected all over the Earth… It was just an incredible sight… and then it disappeared. It became invisible.”

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This image inevitably invites comparisons to Earthrise, taken on Christmas Eve 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission. This mission marked the first time that three humans had orbited the moon. That photo, taken by pilot Bill Anders, revealed Earth to be a fragile, finite world suspended in darkness. This perspective is widely credited with helping to fuel the modern environmental movement.

The Artemis II crew went on to capture their own images of Earthset, but it was the first Earthset (also taken from a distance, close-up and wide-angle) that had a profound impact on Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“The four of us took some time,” Wiseman said. “We shared the maple cookies that Jeremy had brought. We took about three to four minutes as a crew to reflect on our situation, and then we quickly got back to science.”

“There’s a lot for our brains to process,” Wiseman added. “The human mind doesn’t have to go through what it just went through. It’s a true gift.”

The original Earthrise image announced humanity’s arrival on the Moon. It was unexpected and impromptu. The Earth set is intentional and marks humanity’s return to the moon after more than half a century.