• NASA has released the first of 10,000 photos from the Artemis II moon flyby.
• The mission has yielded a new version of the 1968 photograph Earthrise, which helped fuel environmentalist efforts. 
• Other photos from humankind’s first return to the moon since 1972 included dramatic views of a total solar eclipse.

Astronauts returned to the moon this week for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, with Artemis II conducting a lunar flyby on April 6. The NASA mission’s four-person team captured an astonishing 10,000 images of the moon, including an updated take on perhaps the most famous photograph ever taken in outer space, the Earthrise shot by William Anders.

“Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!” Anders exclaimed before clicking the shutter on the unplanned Earthrise shot during the Apollo 8 voyage on December 24, 1968. It was the first crewed journey around the moon and thus the first time humans had seen the far side of the moon.

William Anders, Earthrise (1968). Photo courtesy of NASA.

Commander Reid Wiseman took the Artemis II photo, dubbed Earthset, while the Orion spacecraft Integrity encircled the far side of the moon. It shows the lunar surface in the foreground, with the Ohm crater. The Earth appears to be sinking below the horizon, with much of the planet in darkness and clouds over Australia and Oceania.

“Artemis II… took humanity on an incredible journey around the moon and brought back images so exquisite and brimming with science, they will inspire generations to come,” Nicky Fox, an associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate, said in a statement.

Earthset was the first publicly released image from the seven-hour lunar flyby, during which the crew lost contact with ground control for 40 minutes. Wiseman used a Nikon D5 camera, known for its durability and exceptionally high ISO.

An increased ISO allows digital cameras to capture details under low light, but introduces digital noise. The high end of the Nikon D5’s range is rarely practical, and Earthset only used an ISO of 400—but Wiseman set the camera to ISO 51,200 for his dramatic shot of the Earth almost entirely in shadow save for the sunlit rim, clouds and landforms still visible in the darkness.

Reid Wiseman, Artemis II Captures Dark Side of the Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA.

The Crescent Earth

Prints of the original Earthrise image have sold for as much as £21,250 ($29,575), a record set at Christie’s Online in 2021, according to the Artnet Price Database. (A print of the work on offer at Dorotheum in Vienna in an upcoming April 17 sale has a much more modest estimate, of just €3,000, or $3,460.)

The renowned photograph perfectly captures the vulnerability of our planet, the blue-and-white sphere tiny and isolated against the darkness of space, with the cold, gray surface of the lifeless moon filling the foreground.

“Once the photo was published, members of Congress and global leaders all started talking about how fragile the Earth was,” Kathleen Rogers, former president of the Earth Day Network, told the BBC. “Earthrise highlighted the uniqueness of Earth in that big black universe and it drove home to millions of people how dirty our planet was.”

A gas mask is held aloft at the inaugural Earth Day gathering in New York City, New York, April 22, 1970. Photo by Cyril H. Baker / FPG / Archive Photos / Getty Images.

It is credited with fueling the then-nascent environmentalist movement and helping inspire the establishment of Earth Day in 1970. The photo was used on posters promoting the event, which saw an estimated 20 million Americans participating in rallies and marches calling for an end to environmental destruction.

The late wilderness photographer Galen Rowell once told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the image was “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”

Reid Wiseman, Hello, World (2026). Photo courtesy of NASA.

An Unmatched View of Earth

With the first crewed Artemis mission, we are capturing images of our planet that have not been possible since Apollo 17, the 11th and final crewed mission in the program, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean in December 1972.

Other images captured by Artemis II include stunning shots of the moon backlit by the sun during the 45-minute totality of a solar eclipse—the first one seen by humans from such a close vantage point—and Hello, World, Wiseman’s updated version of Blue Marble, taken by Harrison Schmitt during Apollo 17.

Artemis II in Eclipse (2026). Photo courtesy of NASA.

Also popular in environmental advocacy and among the most widely reproduced images in history, The Blue Marble was the first full view of the planet showing the southern polar ice cap taken by a human photographer, rather than a satellite. The photo has sold for even more than Earthrise, fetching £32,500 ($43,200) at Christie’s Online in 2020.

Artemis II also beat the record for the humans to travel furthest from Earth at 252,756 miles, with Wiseman and crew outdistancing Apollo 13’s aborted 1970 lunar landing by about 4,102 miles.

The mission is set to return to Earth on Friday, with NASA planning a lunar landing by another crew in two years’ time.

Harrison Schmitt, Blue Marble (1972). Photo courtesy of NASA.