We have our first look at the science from Artemis II, and it's as amazing as we might have hoped.
This past April, four astronauts strapped in for a flyby around the moon and back to Earth. The first mission to the moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972, this success marked an incredible historic milestone. The Artemis II crew also conducted groundbreaking science, observing parts of the moon no human had ever laid eyes on before. And now, we have our first look at some of the science from the mission.
"It's the science community's job now to take these data and go do magical things with it," David Hollibaugh Baker, a member of the Artemis II Lunar Science Team, said during a Wednesday (10/7) press conference that announced the mission's initial science results.
This is just the first batch of data from the mission, but it includes a whopping 996 new images, 814 GB of observations and 521 minutes of audio from the crew that has never been heard before. Everything from that astronauts' handwritten notes and drawings to photographs and verbal observations have revealed exciting new information — about impact flashes on the moon, for example, as well as the terminator line between the lunar "day" and "night" sides and a whole range of lunar colors and observations from beyond the mysterious far side.
Let's take a quick look at some of the highlights.
Impact flashes
"Dude, no way!" Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman of NASA exclaimed in newly released mission audio.
"It's just like a 'bloop!'" mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency added as the flashes appeared on the lunar surface. .
As Artemis II's Orion capsule flew by the moon, the four astronauts onboard — Wiseman, Hansen and NASA astronauts Victor Glover (mission pilot) and Christina Koch (mission specialist)— started seeing flashes of light on the lunar surface. These were impact flashes caused by small rocks hitting the lunar surface and vaporizing in the impact.
"We have seen three impact flashes so far," Wiseman said to Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It was not sun glint off a particulate from the thrusters or the purge tanks. It was definitely impact flashes on the moon."
"Amazing news," Mission Control responded. "I literally just looked over at the SER [Science Evaluation Room], and they were jumping up and down, literally."
In total, the crew saw five impact flashes on the moon's surface, which the mission's science team was able to confirm didn't come from other sources.
While the Artemis II crew was equipped with cameras, they were also trained to make observations with the unaided eye. And impact flashes happen too quickly to photograph them, so — as you can see above — the crew used a tablet to make annotations and describe their observations.
"We wanted them to look visually, so there are not camera images of that, but we have their annotations of when they saw them," Jennifer Heldmen, science theme lead for the Artemis II mission, said during the briefing.
A rainbow moon
In addition to seeing impact flashes across the lunar surface, the Artemis II crew observed a wide range of colors on the moon.
Looking up in the night sky, it might seem that the moon is just shades of gray. But as the astronauts saw during their flyby, the moon is gray, black, brown, tan, white, green and even blue. This muted rainbow of colors was not only visually striking, as the astronauts' photos show, but it can also help scientists determine what types of rocks and minerals might be found in different regions across the moon's surface.
"The crew reported greens and yellowish hues on top of Aristarchus Plateau, signaling they were seeing remnants of different styles and epochs of volcanic activity, and the crew contrasted those colors to nearby browns and grays of adjacent volcanic plains," Ariel Deutsch, a member of the Artemis II Lunar Science Team, said during the briefing, givingone example of these colorful observations.
"To me, it's primarily like a brownish-green glass, and then if I went up into the mares [dark volcanic deposits] to the north of Aristarchus, I would give that a very muted brown," Wiseman said in mission recordings shared in this release.
"It's like a jaundiced cheek of the moon," Koch remarked in mission audio, describing yellowish colors on the moon.
And while the crew took some amazing photographs of the moon, in this data release we can also see their handwritten notes annotating the colors they saw on the moon.
The far side of the moon
As the moon is tidally locked to Earth, it has one "day side" that always faces us and one far or "night side" that is always facing away. When the Artemis II astronauts flew by the moon, they flew around the entire object, even around the far side. During their flyby, they were able to see a part of the far sidethat has never been observed up close like this before.
"The Artemis II crew were the first people to see this section of the moon illuminated in all of human history," Alex Stoken, a member of the Crew Lunar Observations team, said during the briefing.
When they approached the moon's far side, the crew also came upon the terminator line, or the boundary between the day and night sides of the moon.
At the terminator, the team was able to view the incredible contrasting shadows and textures of the lunar surface, revealing sharp details about the moon's topography.
"The terminator is the most striking thing that I’ve seen so far," Glover said as the crew flew by.
As they rounded the moon's far side, the moon was backlit by the sun, essentially eclipsing it. This allowed for incredibly unique and sharp views of the moon.
"You’ve got to be kidding me," Koch said in the capsule. "You can actually see mountains."
These are just a few highlights from this incredibly thorough and detailed data release. As we dig deeper into this initial science, you can take a dive through the data yourself here and here.
