The four astronauts of the Artemis II mission have entered the Moon’s gravitational sphere, becoming the humans who have traveled the farthest in history, according to Reuters. They have been traveling aboard the Orion spacecraft since launching from Florida last week and are set to reach a maximum distance from Earth of about 252,757 miles, surpassing the record of Apollo 13.
Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen will travel around the far side of the Moon, observing it from about 4,000 miles above its surface, while Earth appears much smaller in the distance.
This marks the highlight of the first crewed mission of the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon by 2028 and establish a lunar base for future missions to Mars.
The flyby around the Moon will last about six hours, featuring professional photography of light bending around the Moon’s edges—similar to a lunar eclipse—as well as rare views of Earth rising over the lunar horizon. A team of scientists at the Johnson Space Center will document the astronauts’ observations in real time.
