NASA Just Uploaded More Than 12,000 Stunning Photos From the Artemis 2 Mission. Here Are a Few of Our Favorites

While the mission’s four astronauts sent a few photos to Earth while in space, most needed to be delivered via physical memory cards once they returned to the planet

Margherita Bassi | Daily Correspondent

May 12, 2026 4:32 p.m.

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The world watched with bated breath as NASA’s Artemis 2 mission launched last month, sending humans toward the moon for the first time since 1972. The four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft—NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with the Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—looped around our celestial companion, getting as close as 4,067 miles to its surface.

While the crew sent some thrilling photographs to Earth during the mission itself, data limits meant that the rest of the images could be delivered only via physical SD cards once the astronauts came home, according to Space.com’s Josh Dinner.

Many of the photos include the 30 lunar surface targets the crew were asked to focus on, including two ancient impact craters that’ll help scientists understand how the moon’s features change over time. But the photos also captured stunning views of Earth and a solar eclipse created when the moon blocked the sun from Orion’s perspective.

“It’s hard not to just absolutely melt into a puddle of awe and amazement at some of the really spectacular ones,” Kelsey Young, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and lunar science lead for Artemis 2, told Scientific American’s Meghan Bartels last month, referencing the images.

Once the mission came to a successful conclusion on April 10, the clock started ticking for its lunar science team to release Artemis 2’s entire dataset, including every image of the moon, as well as initial science and operations reports, within six months, per the outlet.

Now, NASA has added more than 12,000 images to a database called the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Within the Artemis 2 collection, you can browse newly released shots of the eclipse, stars, Earth and the showstopper itself: the moon. More might come soon, given that the photo ID numbers span ART002-E-168 to ART002-E-30001.

There isn’t much data accompanying the images at the moment, but they provide gorgeous perspectives snapped with several cameras, including two Nikon D5s and a Nikon Z9 on board, as well as GoPros stuck to the spacecraft’s exterior, reports Forbes’ Jamie Carter. The astronauts even took some photos with iPhones.

Ultimately, the images will be put into NASA’s Planetary Data System, which archives all digital data from planetary science missions, making them accessible to researchers—and the public—across the globe.

Here are some of our favorite images from the recent Artemis 2 data drop.

“Hello, world” was one of the first photos that the Artemis 2 crew sent to their team back on Earth. It features an “upside-down” view of the planet, relative to how the Earth is usually presented, with northern Africa and Spain on the left, the Atlantic Ocean in the middle, and parts of South America on the right. It also captures two green auroras on opposite sides of the planet, in the top right and bottom left, as the Earth eclipses the sun.

This photograph of an Earthset—an unusual term for most people—shows our home planet appearing to fall below the moon’s horizon. It follows in the footsteps of the Earthrise photos that the Apollo 8 crew members snapped almost six decades ago.

“Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth comin’ up,” Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders, who snapped the iconic image, said in 1968, according to NASA. “Wow, is that pretty!”

In the newer photo, Earth is dropping behind the moon instead, but there’s no arguing over the beauty of both perspectives.

A sliver of Earth shines blueish-white against the backdrop of space in this image taken on day 3 of the mission.

During the mission, the crew proposed names for two lunar craters: Integrity, after their Orion spacecraft, and Carroll, in honor of Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman. They both appear in this image of the moon’s surface, near the huge Orientale basin with the dark center, though they are easier to identify with the help of some labels. The International Astronomical Union, which names celestial bodies and their features, will determine whether the two titles will become official.

Here is a labeled image so you can see the craters more clearly! pic.twitter.com/H2dHIdKXcv

— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) April 7, 2026

This image shows blurred star trails streaking across the sky, as well as the Milky Way galaxy, according to Forbes. These bright trails show the paths of stars moving across the sky from the perspective of the photographer, and they are usually captured through long exposures taken over the course of minutes or hours, according to EarthSky’s Bruce McClure. When photographed on Earth, it’s technically the planet that’s spinning—not the stars.

As if their mission wasn’t exciting enough, on April 6, the astronauts witnessed a solar eclipse that wasn’t visible to humans back on Earth—and never will be, according to BBC Sky at Night Magazine’s Iain Todd. When a solar eclipse occurs from Earth’s point of view, humans always see the same side of the moon slip in front of the sun because it’s the side that permanently faces our planet. The Artemis 2 crew, however, saw the sun disappear for nearly an hour behind a different side of the moon.

The moon’s surface is pockmarked with craters. This image features the Vavilov crater on the rim of the older, much bigger Hertzsprung basin, which appears more lit up and takes up most of the photo. The basin is on the far side of the moon, which is never visible from Earth. When the Orion spacecraft traveled behind the moon, NASA lost contact—as planned—with the Artemis 2 crew for around 40 minutes.

Margherita Bassi | Read More

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.