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Houston: Emerging from behind the moon, the Artemis II astronauts pointed their capsule toward home Monday night after beholding views of the lunar far side never before witnessed and setting a new distance record for humanity.

The seven-hour flyby was the highlight of NASA’s first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian – a step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years.

First came a prize – and bragging rights – for Artemis II.

Artemis II surpasses Apollo 13’s record

Artemis II surpassed Apollo 13’s distance record of 248,655 miles (400,171 km) set in April 1970, right before the fly-around and intense lunar observations got started. It ended up beating it

“It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now. It is just unbelievable,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed ahead of the flyby. He challenged “this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived”.

Aastronauts name two lunar craters

Moments after breaking Apollo 13’s record, the astronauts asked permission to name two fresh lunar craters already observed. They proposed Integrity, their capsule’s name, and Carroll in honour of Commander Reid Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.

Wiseman wept as Hansen put in the request to Mission Control, and all four astronauts embraced in tears.

“Such a majestic view out here,” Wiseman radioed once he regained his composure and started picture-taking. The astronauts called down that they managed to capture the moon and Earth in the same shot, and provided a running commentary to scientists back in Houston on what they were seeing.

Some peaks were so bright, pilot Victor Glover noted, that they looked as though they were covered in snow. Besides photographing the scenes with high-powered Nikon cameras, the astronauts also pulled out their iPhones for some impromptu shots.