WASHINGTON — Following a successful blast off from Earth, the Artemis II crew shared the first image of Earth from the Orion spacecraft. NASA released the image early Thursday, the second day of the 10-day trip around the moon before making their way back to Earth.

After beginning its journey to the moon after a dramatic trans-lunar injection, the four-strong crew of the Orion spacecraft sent back some spectacular images of Earth.

The virtual event featured Hansen speaking live from aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft, approximately three days into the 10-day lunar flyby mission.

In an unusual perspective for an Earth-observing satellite, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured this image of the moon, Earth's only natural satellite. The Sentinel-2 mission acquired this lunar image by rolling one of its satellites sideways to view the moon instead of Earth.

A 2025 astronaut photo shows a massif made of concentric mountain ridges in the Libyan desert.

Astronauts on board the Artemis II spacecraft described on Saturday the "extraordinary things" they had already seen a few days into their mission.