Artemis II 'Earthset' Photos Will Give You Chills

On Monday evening, April 6, 2026, the four-person crew of Artemis II witnessed something few humans have ever seen: our entire world vanishing behind the lunar horizon.

Known as an "Earthset," the moment was captured through the windows of the Orion spacecraft just minutes before the crew embarked on the most isolated phase of their mission — a 40-minute radio blackout while passing behind the Moon.

The Edge of Two Worlds

In one of the chilling photos, Earth appears in a delicate crescent phase. Sunlight strikes the right side of the planet, illuminating swirling white clouds over the deep blue of the Australia and Oceania regions. The rest of our world is dark in the photo, experiencing nighttime.

The detail is so sharp that viewers can see secondary crater chains — indentations formed by material ejected during violent primary impacts — trailing across the Moon's surface like scars.

A View Over Ohm Crater

As the clock ticked toward the 6:44 p.m. EDT blackout, the crew captured a second, even more detailed shot. In this frame, the lunar surface is dominated by the Ohm Crater.

Geologists noted the crater’s "terraced edges" and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks—the result of the lunar surface essentially liquefying and "splashing" upward during the initial impact billions of years ago.

The Silence of Deep Space

Three minutes after these photos were taken, the Integrity capsule slipped behind the Moon’s bulk, severing all contact with NASA’s Deep Space Network. For 40 minutes, the crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — were the most isolated humans in history, watching the total eclipse of the sun fading behind the moon, the Earth nowhere to be seen.