NASA has released a slew of photos captured by the Artemis II crew as they hurtle through space toward the moon — including an updated version of the iconic “Blue Marble” shot snapped by the Apollo 17 crew more than 50 years ago.
“We’ve come so far in the last 54 years, but one thing that hasn’t changed: Our home looks gorgeous from space!” NASA wrote in an X thread sharing the unmistakable image of our home planet next to its 1972 counterpart.
The photo is mostly blue ocean, but the land mass of northern Africa, including the Strait of Gibraltar and part of Southern Spain and Portugal can be made out on the left side of the globe.
Another pair of images released by the US space agency show astronauts Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman peering at the Earth through a window on the spacecraft.
“This view just hits different. [Koch] and [Wiseman] take a moment to look back at Earth as they continue deep into space toward the moon,” NASA wrote in another X post.
A third image shared by NASA shows Earth engulfed mostly in darkness except for a blindingly bright sliver of light hugging the planet at the bottom right.
“Even in darkness, we glow,” the agency wrote.
“In this image of Earth taken by the Artemis II crew, we can see the electric lights of human activity. In the lower right, sunlight illuminates the limb of the planet,” the X post explained.
A clearly awestruck Wiseman shared the photo on his own X account with the caption “There are no words.”
Camera technology has evolved considerably since the image of Earth taken from Apollo 17 on Dec. 7, 1972 by astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, who used a 70mm Hasselblad camera for the famous photo.
This time around, NASA said, the crew used an iPhone 17 Pro Max for some of the shots.
Over the next few days, the first manned space mission since 1972 will reach the moon, some 250,000 miles from Earth, before hitching a ride on the its gravity for a non-stop return flight back home, achieving a first-ever figure-eight flight pattern.
The mission will see humans propelled further into space than ever before, and although the Orion spacecraft will not make a lunar landing, the mission is laying the groundwork for a return to the moon by astronauts in 2028.
Artemis II is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on Friday, April 10.
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