{"id":55240,"date":"2026-04-04T13:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T13:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/55240\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T13:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T13:46:11","slug":"artemis-ii-crew-reaches-halfway-point-to-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/55240\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II crew reaches halfway point to Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Artemis II mission has passed the midpoint of its journey to the Moon, as NASA released the first images of Earth taken from the Orion spacecraft during the crewed flight.<\/p>\n

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NASA confirmed<\/a> that the four astronauts aboard Orion crossed the halfway mark around two days and five hours after launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft is now more than 220,000 kilometres from Earth and closer to the Moon than its point of departure.<\/p>\n

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Commander Reid Wiseman captured a series of high-resolution images showing Earth from deep space.<\/p>\n

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One image, titled \u201cHello, World\u201d, presents the planet as a full sphere set against darkness, with visible cloud systems, oceans and a thin layer of atmosphere.<\/p>\n


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\nPhoto by Reid Wiseman \/NASA \/ AFP \/ Lehtikuva
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The image also shows green auroras near the poles and the outline of continents including parts of the Sahara, the Iberian Peninsula and South America. NASA identified a bright object in the frame as the planet Venus.<\/p>\n

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The photographs were taken after a key engine burn placed Orion on a trajectory towards the Moon. The manoeuvre marked the end of Earth orbit and the start of the trans-lunar phase of the mission.<\/p>\n


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\nPhoto by Reid Wiseman \/NASA \/ AFP \/ Lehtikuva
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Another image shows the boundary between daylight and darkness across the planet, known as the terminator. A separate photograph captures Earth in near darkness, with clusters of artificial light visible on the surface.<\/p>\n

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Wiseman said earlier in the mission that capturing images from such distance posed challenges. He compared it to trying to photograph the Moon from Earth, citing difficulties with exposure settings. NASA said the issue has since been resolved.<\/p>\n

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The Artemis II mission marks the first time humans have travelled beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo programme ended in 1972. The crew includes Wiseman,\u00a0Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen and Victor Glover.<\/p>\n

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The spacecraft is following a looping path around the Moon without landing. It is expected to pass behind the Moon on 6 April before returning to Earth for a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on 10 April.<\/p>\n

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NASA said all systems aboard Orion are operating as expected and the crew remains in good condition. During the mission, astronauts will carry out observations and test spacecraft systems for future lunar missions.<\/p>\n

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HT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Artemis II mission has passed the midpoint of its journey to the Moon, as NASA released the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[87],"tags":[30710,30715,30716,30713,158,113,30711,30712,30714],"class_list":["post-55240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-helsinki","tag-artemis-ii","tag-christina-koch","tag-crewed-lunar-mission","tag-earth-images-space","tag-finland","tag-helsinki","tag-nasa-moon-mission","tag-orion-spacecraft","tag-reid-wiseman"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116346747999498040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}