NASA Releases 12,000 Artemis II Photos: See the Best Images From the Moon Mission

NASA has released 12,217 photographs from the Artemis II mission, giving the public a much closer look at the astronauts’ historic journey around the Moon. The images were taken during the crew’s 10-day mission from April 1 to April 10, 2026, and include detailed views of the Moon, Earth, the spacecraft, and a rare solar eclipse seen from lunar space.

The huge photo release is significant because Artemis II was the first crewed NASA mission to travel beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years. The newly available images also capture places and events that cannot be seen from Earth, including the Moon’s far side and the Sun appearing behind the Moon during the crew’s lunar flyby.

Why did NASA release so many photos months after the mission?

The astronauts took thousands of photographs during their journey, but NASA could not immediately make the entire collection public. Because of data limitations during the flight, only some images could be transmitted while the crew was in space.

The rest remained on physical SD cards inside the Orion spacecraft. After the astronauts returned to Earth with the cards, NASA began processing the material and gradually releasing photographs.

NASA has now made the full collection available through its public archive of astronaut photographs, allowing people to explore more than 12,000 images from the mission.

What did the Artemis II astronauts actually see?

The photographs offer a dramatically different view of Earth and the Moon.

Some of the images show Earth appearing as a small, illuminated crescent against the darkness of space. Others capture the Moon’s heavily cratered surface from a perspective that is impossible to reproduce from the ground.

The crew also photographed subtle colors across the lunar surface. During the mission, astronauts reported seeing brown and green shades on parts of the Moon that can be difficult to appreciate in conventional lunar photographs.

One particularly striking image shows Earth appearing tiny behind a crescent Moon. The photograph was taken after the spacecraft completed its closest approach to the Moon.

The astronauts photographed a solar eclipse from lunar space

One of the most unusual moments captured in the collection happened during the crew’s lunar flyby on April 6.

As Orion passed around the far side of the Moon, the spacecraft moved into a position where the Moon came between the astronauts and the Sun. The crew was therefore able to photograph a solar eclipse from beyond the Moon’s far side.

Instead of seeing the eclipse from Earth, the astronauts watched the Sun disappear behind the lunar disk. The Sun’s glowing outer atmosphere, known as the corona, remained visible around the Moon.

That perspective is one of the standout features of the newly released collection because it shows an astronomical event from a viewpoint humans rarely experience.

The Moon’s far side appears in unprecedented detail

During the roughly seven-hour lunar flyby, the four astronauts passed around the Moon’s far side, which permanently faces away from Earth.

Their cameras captured rugged terrain near the Moon’s terminator, the boundary separating the illuminated and dark portions of the lunar surface. The photographs also show craters, ridges and ancient lava flows.

NASA has said such images could help scientists study the Moon’s topography and better understand how its surface developed.

The crew even gave names to two small lunar craters. One was named “Integrity,” after the Orion spacecraft, while another was called “Carroll,” in memory of Reid Wiseman’s late wife, who died of cancer in 2020.

One photograph captured the spacecraft itself in motion

Not every unusual image in the archive shows a planet or the Moon.

One photograph contains trails from stars outside Orion’s window. It was made using a six-second exposure, with the trails appearing because the spacecraft was rotating during its journey.

Orion rotated to help distribute heat from sunlight across the spacecraft. The movement created the distinctive streaking effect visible among the stars.

Artemis II also broke a human-distance record

The mission was more than a photography expedition.

The four-person crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, traveled farther from Earth than any humans had before.

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The spacecraft reached approximately 252,760 miles (406,773 kilometers) from Earth.

The crew returned on April 10, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego after completing the 10-day mission.

Why these photographs matter for NASA’s Moon plans

Artemis II was designed to test the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft with humans aboard before NASA’s planned crewed lunar landing.

NASA is using the Artemis program as a step toward a longer-term human presence on the Moon. The next major mission, Artemis III, is intended to test additional technologies needed for a lunar landing, with NASA ultimately aiming to establish a more sustained presence on the lunar surface.

The 12,217 photographs therefore do more than document a historic trip. They provide a visual record of what humans can see when they travel deep into lunar space, from a tiny Earth hanging in the darkness to landscapes on the far side of the Moon and an eclipse witnessed from a place no human had previously photographed it.