Artemis II Crew Saw a Solar Eclipse From Behind the Moon. No Human Had Ever Seen That Before.
The Apollo 8 astronauts saw Earthrise. The Artemis II crew saw something stranger.
On April 6, 2026, as Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen rounded the far side of the moon, the moon blocked the sun. Not from Earth — from them. The solar corona formed a ring around the dark lunar disk, visible in full structure for the first time from human eyes. NASA had given the crew special eclipse glasses for the occasion. The totality lasted 54 minutes. Victor Glover called it "the strangest looking thing — that you can see so much on the surface," explaining that earthshine was bright enough to illuminate lunar features through the darkness. [NASA Flickr]
According to NASA, a solar eclipse seen from this close to the moon has never been witnessed by a human before. Glover's reaction, recorded by National Geographic contributor Swapna Krishna: "This continues to be unreal. We just went sci-fi." [National Geographic]
The crew also photographed what they called Earthset — a deliberate inversion of the Apollo 8 Earthrise frame that helped inspire the environmental movement in the late 1960s. From about 4,000 miles above the lunar surface, Earth appears smaller in the Artemis II image than it did in the Apollo 8 frame, and more lunar terrain is visible. They also became the first humans to see the Orientale basin, a 600-mile-wide impact crater on the moon's far side. [National Geographic]
Before the flyby, the crew received a message from Jim Lovell — recorded before his death on August 7, 2025 — welcoming them to, as he put it, "my old neighborhood." Lovell piloted Apollo 8 and commanded Apollo 13. [National Geographic]
The eclipse image is under scientific investigation. According to the NASA Flickr description for image art002e009301, researchers are examining whether the extended corona glow is entirely explained by the solar corona or whether zodiacal light — sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust — contributes to the effect. The image also captured stars typically too faint to image alongside the moon, made possible because the lunar disk itself was in darkness. [NASA Flickr]
Christina Koch, as the crew began its return: "We will visit again. We will construct science outposts. We will drive rovers. We will do radio astronomy. We will found companies. We will bolster industry. We will inspire but ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other." [National Geographic]
Artemis II splashes down today, April 10, off the coast of California.
