Artemis II Astronauts Witnessed 6 Meteorites Colliding With the Moon

The moon gets hit by space debris all the time, but some of the impacts are so large you can see them with the naked eye from thousands of kilometers away.

During their flyby of the far side of the moon, the Artemis II astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft saw as many as six flashes emerging from the lunar surface. Surprisingly, they were witnessing small meteorites impacting the ground and producing brief flashes of light.

NASA's control room recorded the team's surprise during the mission livestream, although the cameras did not pick up the flashes. According to the astronauts, the flashes were white or blue-white and lasted less than a second. The cameras they were using to document the moon weren't fast enough to record them.

The crew was flying between 6,000 and 7,000 kilometers away. Under normal conditions, these impacts would have gone unnoticed ...