Moon | Pakistan

The Artemis astronauts have taken in sights of the Moon never before seen by human eyes, crew members reported on Sunday as their spacecraft crossed the two-thirds mark on their journey to a long-anticipated lunar flyby. As the astronauts went to bed in the early hours of Sunday, closing out the fourth day of their 10-day mission, they were nearly 200,000 miles (321,869 kilometres) from Earth and 82,000 miles from the Moon, according to Nasa’s online dashboard. The US space agency published on Sunday an image taken by the Artemis crew, showing a distant Moon with the Orientale basin visible. “This mission marks the first time the entire basin has been seen with human eyes,” Nasa said. The massive crater, which resembles a bullseye, had been photographed before by orbiting cameras. Speaking to Canadian children live from space, astronaut Christina Koch said the crew was most excited to see the basin — sometimes known as the Moon’s “Grand Canyon”. “It’s very distinctive and no human eyes previously had seen thi...

The four Artemis astronauts have passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon on the way to their planned lunar flyby, Nasa said on Friday evening. “You are now closer to the moon than you are to us on Earth,” mission control told the astronauts at around 11pm (4am GMT), according to the space agency’s official live broadcast. his screengrab from a NASA live broadcast video shows (L-R) NASA astronaut and Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Artemis II Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman during a press call as they travel to the Moon in the Orion spacecraft, on April 3, 2026. —AFP “We all kind of had a collective, I guess, expression of joy at that… We can see the Moon out of the docking hatch right now, it is a beautiful sight,” said astronaut Christina Koch replied. The milestone was hit around two days, five hours and 24 minutes after liftoff, according to the Nasa official broadcast. The US space agency’s online dashboa...

Four Artemis astronauts were zooming towards the Moon on Friday after a major engine firing, a milestone that commits NASA to the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century. With enough thrust to accelerate a stationary car to highway driving speed in less than three seconds, the Orion capsule engine blasted the astronauts on their trajectory towards the Moon, which they will now loop as part of the 10-day Artemis 2 mission. In the moments that followed what the US space agency dubbed a “flawless” firing that lasted just under six minutes, astronaut Jeremy Hansen said that “humanity has once again shown what we are capable of.” The astronauts said they were “glued to the window” taking pictures, and later passed a floating microphone back and forth as they took questions from US television networks. They said the spacecraft was a little chilly and they were still making it a home, but the crew was all smiles. NASA’s Artemis II mission to fly by the moon, comprising of the Space Launch System (SLS) r...