Finally, Artemis delivers some exceptional, high-quality photos of the Moon

A close-up view taken by the Artemis II crew of Vavilov Crater on the rim of the older and larger Hertzsprung basin. Credit: NASA

NASA’s Artemis II mission, carrying four astronauts on an out-of-this-world journey, flew around the Moon on Monday.

The crew members took turns describing the stunning landscape below and captured images of Earth rising behind the Moon, in communications with Mission Control in Houston. What they did not send back in real time, due to a lack of communications bandwidth, was this high-resolution imagery.

That changed on Monday night, when Orion established an optical link with ground stations on Earth to send high-resolution images back to the planet. NASA has been uploading them to Johnson Space Center’s Flickr page.

And what those images reveal is awe-inspiring.

During their flyby, the astronauts were able to take advantage of both a rising and setting Earth, as well ...