00:01NASA just marked Earth Day by opening a vault of previously unreleased imagery captured during the Artemis 2 mission.
00:08In 1968, the Apollo 8 crew rounded the moon, and astronaut Bill Anders captured a bright blue globe hanging over
00:16a gray lunar landscape.
00:18That photograph, Earthrise, helped launch the very first Earth Day two years later.
00:23But after the Apollo program ended, humans stopped traveling far enough into the void to get that kind of perspective.
00:30For over five decades, no one was in a position to look back and take a fresh picture of the
00:36entire planet.
00:37These newly unsealed Artemis images provide that missing view, serving as the first visual proof of a new era of
00:44deep spaceflight.
00:45To get these shots, the four Artemis 2 astronauts spent ten days flying a 700,000-mile journey around the
00:53moon.
00:53Over the course of that flight, they traveled further away from Earth than any human beings in history.
00:59This chart tracks the scale of human exploration to the moon.
01:02The right boundary line marks the maximum distance reached by Apollo 13 in 1970.
01:08The Artemis 2 crew pushed past that marker, flying 4,111 miles further into the void.
01:16Achieving this extreme vantage point was a prerequisite for capturing the specific imagery the crew brought back.
01:22One photo, taken just a day into the flight, shows a sweeping view of Earth's cloudy surface, intersected by a
01:28sharp, high-contrast line.
01:30That line is called the Terminator.
01:33It is the physical boundary where daytime ends and the darkness of night begins across the globe.
01:38On April 6th, as the crew traveled behind the moon, they watched a crescent Earth slowly dip below the cratered
01:44horizon.
01:46Reed Wiseman filmed this Earthset moment using his personal smartphone.
01:50He used an eight-time zoom, closely matching what the human eye actually sees from the Orion cockpit.
01:55Shot uncut on a familiar lens, it presents a record-breaking spaceflight milestone, as something that looks like a video
02:02any of us could have taken.
02:04While in lunar orbit, the astronauts also watched a solar eclipse.
02:08To protect their eyes, they used the exact paper eclipse glasses NASA produced for Earth viewers.
02:14On Earth, a total solar eclipse is a brief coincidence of geometry, lasting about three minutes.
02:20But the crew's position in orbit allowed them to experience 54 minutes of deep space totality.
02:27This photograph captures the sun's corona shimmering against the darkness.
02:31Look closely on the left to see faint Earth light reflecting off the lunar crust.
02:35During that hour of darkness, the crew scanned the edge of the moon for flashes of light caused by meteoroid
02:42strikes.
02:42During the flyby, the astronauts witnessed six different meteoroids slam into the lunar surface.
02:49Documenting the frequency of these impacts provides NASA with vital hazard data needed before placing human habitats on the moon's
02:56surface.
02:56Behind the camera, the crew dealt with the practicalities of deep space travel, including tight quarters, troubleshooting the capsule's toilet,
03:04and reluring on hot sauce to add flavor to freeze-dried meals.
03:08On April 10, the Orion capsule safely splashed down, bringing the flyby mission to a successful close.
03:15NASA is now looking towards Artemis III in 2027, which will test the docking capabilities required to land humans on
03:22the surface during the Artemis IV mission.
03:24These photos serve as a proof of concept.
03:27The abstract idea of returning to the moon is becoming a reality, and footprints are expected to follow soon.
03:34To follow the mission as we get closer to the lunar surface, like this video and subscribe to the channel.
03:39Hit the notification bell so you don't miss our next update on the future of space exploration.
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