{"id":796472,"date":"2026-10-09T00:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T00:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796472\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T00:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T00:22:20","slug":"nasa-releases-trove-of-moon-data-from-historic-artemis-ii-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796472\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA releases trove of Moon data from historic Artemis II flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Artemis<\/p>\n

Artemis II astronaut Jeremy Hansen captures images during the lunar flyby.Credit: NASA<\/p>\n

Planetary scientists have fresh \u2018Moon joy\u2019 to explore. On 7 October, NASA released more than 800 gigabytes of images, audio recordings, written notes and other data<\/a> gathered by the Artemis II astronauts on their historic flight past the Moon in April.<\/p>\n

An accompanying report<\/a> chronicles observations made by the first human eyes to view the Moon up close since 1972<\/a>, such as the astronauts\u2019 description of the colours of the lunar surface and the flashes of light seen by the crew as micrometeorites pelted the Moon.<\/p>\n

But the report also details some of the challenges of sending humans to explore the surface of the Moon, which both the United States<\/a> and China plan to do. As lighting conditions changed, the Artemis II astronauts\u2019 perceptions of the lunar surface also changed, showing how difficult it is to assess the Moon\u2019s terrain accurately. At times, sunlight overwhelmed the crew\u2019s vision. Understanding such issues is important for future astronauts trying to avoid hazards such as craters and boulders as they navigate onto and across the Moon.<\/p>\n

Far from home<\/p>\n

Artemis II, which launched on 1 April<\/a> and returned to Earth on 10 April, carried four astronauts around the Moon and back. The journey took the crew as much as 406,771 kilometres from Earth \u2014 the farthest that humans have ever travelled from their home planet. The goal was to test how well the mission\u2019s Orion capsule could keep humans alive in deep space. But the astronauts also did some science, including more than six hours of lunar observation collectively dubbed \u2018Moon joy\u2019, during their 6 April flyby.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

First photos from Artemis II: see stunning \u2018Earthset\u2019 and more<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

With today\u2019s information release, \u201cI\u2019m really excited for the community to just take this and run,\u201d says Marie Henderson, a planetary scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in Baltimore, who is one of the mission\u2019s deputy lunar-science leads. \u201cA whole bunch of new eyes is just going to make a huge difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new lunar dataset adds to those gathered by multiple orbiters and flyby probes over the years<\/a>, from many nations. Comparing and contrasting the Artemis II observations, made in situ by human eyes, with those from robotic spacecraft can enrich understanding of the Moon, scientists say.<\/p>\n

True colours<\/p>\n

For instance, the astronauts\u2019 descriptions of the colours of the lunar surface are valuable for providing a record of human perception, says Elisha Jhoti, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who plans to work with the data. \u201cThe images we see from the Moon are not exact representations of what our eyes would see,\u201d she says. The astronauts reported colours including brown, tan and green in various places on the Moon, including a shade like \u201cmould growing on sandwich bread\u201d in one spot, according to astronaut Christina Koch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I was with Artemis II\u2019s scientists during the Moon fly-by. Here\u2019s what I saw<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The new data also detail how astronauts\u2019 perception of the degree of darkness in some craters varied as the spacecraft travelled past the Moon and lighting angles changed. That\u2019s important information if future missions send astronauts to navigate in areas such as those near the Moon\u2019s poles. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be hard to be in those low-light conditions,\u201d Henderson says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artemis II astronaut Jeremy Hansen captures images during the lunar flyby.Credit: NASA Planetary scientists have fresh \u2018Moon joy\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[60705,59,32552,4230,4231,3725,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-796472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-astronomy-and-astrophysics","tag-gb","tag-geology","tag-humanities-and-social-sciences","tag-multidisciplinary","tag-planetary-science","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796472","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=796472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}