{"id":522233,"date":"2026-04-09T22:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T22:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522233\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T22:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T22:20:08","slug":"parents-find-comfort-in-moon-crater-being-named-after-a-nicu-nurse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522233\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents Find Comfort in Moon Crater Being Named After a NICU Nurse"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the four astronauts completing NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission <\/a>requested to name a lunar crater on the moon after NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman\u2019s wife, Carroll<\/a>, they made quite an impact on parents whose children have spent time in the NICU.<\/p>\n

Carroll Wiseman was only 46 years old when she died from cancer<\/a>. According to her husband’s official NASA profile<\/a>, Carroll “dedicated her life to helping others as a newborn intensive care unit Registered Nurse.”<\/p>\n

A Montreal mom, Joy Vanides Deneen, whose 7-year-old son spent 6 months in the NICU due to complications from a rare birth defect, posted on Threads, “NICU mama here, crying about a bright spot on the moon named after a NICU nurse. Thank you for watching over our babies, Carroll. \ud83c\udf18”<\/p>\n

Deneen, a calligrapher, tells TODAY.com that she never posts on Threads, “but I was so moved by that zero-gravity group hug that I wanted to draw attention to what she dedicated her life to.”<\/p>\n

She’s not the only NICU parent who feels emotional knowing that there’s a NICU nurse represented on the moon. <\/p>\n

Deneen’s original Thread has over 30,000 views, and an Instagram account called @MakingSenseofScience reposted for an additional 50,000 views. The account commented, “I thought I was done crying about the Carroll Wiseman crater. I was wrong.”<\/p>\n

The responses on each of the posts are out of this world:<\/p>\n

“NICU nurses are angels on earth. And now the moon. \u2764\ufe0f \u2014mother of a 28-weeker.””My little miracle premie was in the NICU for 2 weeks 32 years ago … The thought of Carroll on the bright side of the moon makes me feel she\u2019s going to watch over all of the babies for years to come.””AND the greek goddess Artemis is a deity of childbirth, midwifery, and protector of young children! \ud83e\udd79””As a nurse, mom and woman I want to thank Carroll for helping all of us forget all the horror in our world right now and focus on the love, kindness and joy you and your family have brought to us.” <\/p>\n

One of the most difficult part of her son’s NICU stay, Deneen says, was having to leave him every night. There was no place for parents to sleep, so she left him in the capable hands of the NICU nurses. <\/p>\n

Even so, leaving is “so very difficult,” Deneen says. She thinks it’s “beautiful” that during the night “when it’s so quiet and you’re away from your babies, he has his night nurses watching over him, and then Carroll as well.”<\/p>\n

There’s one more layer to this story. <\/p>\n

When her son was finally discharged from Montreal Children’s Hospital in 2019, Deneen gave each of his nurses and surgeons a “champions pin” from the hospital’s foundation.<\/p>\n

The pin just happened to be shaped like a rocket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the four astronauts completing NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission requested to name a lunar crater on the moon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-522233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}