The Artemis II mission has reached the farthest distance from Earth in human history, breaking a previous record, Reuters reports.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen traveled about 252,756 miles from Earth, surpassing the record set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.
The astronauts flew around the far side of the Moon during a six-hour flyby, coming within about 4,070 miles of the lunar surface. During the maneuver, communication with Earth was briefly lost as the Moon blocked NASA’s signal.
Reuters reports that the crew observed meteor “impact flashes” on the Moon’s surface, describing sparks and streaks of light caused by cosmic impacts on the heavily cratered terrain. Scientists monitored the observations in real time from NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
The mission marks the first time astronauts have traveled to the vicinity of the Moon since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago. Artemis II is intended as a crewed test flight ahead of future missions, with NASA aiming to return humans to the Moon later this decade.
The crew also photographed Earth rising and setting over the lunar horizon, a rare view made possible by their record distance from the planet.
