Over seven hours, the astronauts took thousands of photos that will help inform scientists’ understanding of the moon. The first ones have now been released.

NASA is expected to hold a news conference at 4:30 p.m. EDT. Watch live views of space from Artemis II in our video player above. A day after the historic lunar flyaround, NASA on Tuesday released striking new photos taken by the U.S.-Canadian crew.

The findings were published March 20 in the journal AGU Advances and were based on data recorded by Juno in 2021 and 2022, after NASA granted an extension to the spacecraft’s operations upon completing a five-year science campaign at Jupiter.

If NASA’s ambitious lunar exploration plans succeed, scientists will cover the moon with sensors—and find answers to several long-standing questions about the inner solar system

Our breakdown of 7 hidden science lessons in the stunning photo taken by an astronaut on the Artemis II mission.

The Artemis II crew got the green light to bring iPhone 17s aboard the spacecraft months ago and had them in hand during their pre-flight quarantine. Smartphones have left Earth's orbit before, including on the 2021 Inspiration4 SpaceX flight and the last mission of the American Space Shuttle program.

OCEAN SPRINGS, MS / ACCESS Newswire / March 4, 2026 / The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) is pleased to announce that researchers from NASA's Earth Science Division have joined SCEMFIS as the latest members of its Industry Advisory Board (IAB).

This marked the first-ever moonship-to-spaceship communication, a feat that was impossible during NASA 's Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humans ventured into deep space. Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman expressed the crew's anticipation,