Artemis II astronauts who have just wrapped up a 10-day mission have described the “weird” moment they experienced as they neared the Moon’s far side.
The Artemis II crew lifted off on April 1 and returned safely to Earth nine days later, with the landing being described as a “perfect splashdown”.
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen made up the four-person team. During the flight, they traveled farther into deep space than any humans have before and looped around the lunar far side—often nicknamed the “dark side” of the Moon.
Despite the label, the far side isn’t permanently dark and can receive even more sunlight than the near side. Because the Moon is tidally locked to Earth, the same face always points toward us—meaning the other side isn’t visible from the ground.
While appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the astronauts recalled the instant it hit them that they were venturing into unfamiliar territory.
Hansen said: “It actually happened earlier than we thought, we looked at the Moon and we thought ‘oh that looks weird’. The angle we had we were now seeing parts of the far side from a distance, we all glued to the windows.”
They also shared which part of the journey felt most intense. Koch explained that returning home can be more unsettling than leaving, because the spacecraft endures extreme heat during descent. She said: “Coming back to a planet is no joke… on re-entry you come back, you are a literal plasma ball and you see the fire outside every single window.”
Glover has also spoken about what it meant for the mission to be witnessed by people back on Earth.
“I think something that we all feel and we try to share is how much we want to reflect back to you all how we did this, not we as a crew, we as countries and as humans did this,” he said, as per BBC News.
He added that the trip gave the team time to think about “how beautiful Earth is” while viewing it from space.
Hansen, meanwhile, said the experience strengthened his belief in people, even acknowledging that humanity doesn’t always live up to its ideals.
“We don’t always do great things. We’re not always in our integrity, but our default is to be good and to be good to one another,” he said, adding: “What I’ve seen has brought me more joy, but more hope for our future.”