Astronauts aboard the Artemis II mission are rapidly approaching the moon, where certain features of the lunar landscape will be seen by humans for the first time ever. The space agency shared a tantalizing first glimpse on social media Monday morning.
While the Apollo missions orbited the moon in the 1960s and 70s, they weren’t able to see the entirety of the far side, including the lunar poles, all at the same time. They also did not prioritize capturing images of the far side when it was illuminated.
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“When the Apollo missions launched, they prioritized launching into windows where the near side was illuminated because that’s where the missions landed,” Dr. Kelsey Young, lead for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said at a news conference over the weekend. “The far side was not illuminated at the time when they were in orbit.”
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Young said last week that Artemis II will witness “definite chunks of the far side that have never been seen” by humans.
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