Artemis II crew releases first high-res Earth images

The Artemis II crew aboard the Orion capsule has published its first high-resolution photographs of Earth after completing a trans-lunar injection burn on Friday. Officials said the engine firing successfully pushed Orion out of Earth orbit and set the spacecraft on a roughly 200,000-mile journey toward the Moon. The release includes multiple images taken shortly after the burn as the crew began documenting the changing view of Earth from deepening distance.

Commander Reid Wiseman captured a photo titled “Hello, World,” showing the Atlantic Ocean, a visible atmospheric glow, and green auroras. The same image also includes Venus in the lower right, according to the mission description accompanying the release. Another photograph, titled “Artemis II Looking Back at Earth,” was taken from one of Orion’s main windows and presents a wider look back at the planet as the spacecraft departed Earth’s immediate neighborhood.

Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen said the crew was actively photographing Earth and watching the planet’s dark side as it was lit by the Moon. Wiseman also took an image highlighting the terminator—the boundary between night and day—cutting across Earth. The early set of observations, as described by the crew, focuses on the visual shift from near-Earth space to a broader, more global perspective as Orion moves away.

Artemis II is notable because it is described as the first time humans have traveled beyond Earth’s orbit since 1972. The mission’s current flight plan has the crew continuing on a path that will take them around the far side of the Moon. Officials said the spacecraft is projected to pass that region on April 6, before beginning its return trajectory for an Earth arrival on April 10.

While the newly released images are primarily a visual milestone, they also serve as a public marker of the mission’s progress after the key propulsion event that commits the spacecraft to a lunar trajectory. The photographs underscore that Orion is now operating beyond Earth orbit, where communications, navigation, and spacecraft systems are tested under conditions more representative of future lunar missions.

Some operational details were not included in the release, including any additional imaging plans, the full schedule of upcoming activities, or how many images were captured during the initial photography sessions. For now, the mission timeline provided centers on the April 6 far-side pass and the planned April 10 return to Earth, with the crew continuing to document Earth and the surrounding space environment as Orion proceeds toward the Moon.