NASA has released the first images taken from inside the Artemis II Orion spacecraft, where four astronauts are currently travelling on a mission around the moon.

In a photograph shared on Friday, mission commander Reid Wiseman captured a view of Earth through the capsule’s window. The image shows the planet veiled in sweeping cloud formations, appearing to rise beyond the spacecraft as the crew continues its journey.

A different image shows the entire globe with the oceans. A green aurora even glows.

As of midmorning Friday, Wiseman and his crew were 100,000 miles (160,000 kilometres) from Earth and were quickly closing in on the moon with another 160,000 miles (258,000km) to go. They should reach their destination on Monday.

The three American astronauts and one Canadian will fly around the moon in the Orion capsule before looping back toward Earth without landing. The spacecraft was set on its course after the crew fired Orion’s main engine on Thursday night.

“I knew that that is what we would see,” mission specialist Christina Koch, the first woman to journey around the moon told ABC News in a video call on Thursday night.

“But there’s nothing that prepares you for the breathtaking aspect of seeing your home planet both lit up bright as day and also the moon glow on it at night with a beautiful beam of the sunset and knowing that we’re going to get similar views of the moon. I’m really excited for that. And then, of course, heading home,” she added.

‘You look beautiful’

The mission is now on its third day out of a planned 10-day flight.

On the sixth day of the mission is the day the crew fly by the moon. The spacecraft reaches its closest approach, approximately 4,000-6,000 miles (6,450-9,650km) above the lunar surface.

The astronauts will travel around the far side of the moon, the first humans to journey that far into deep space in more than 50 years. Before that phase, the crew are rehearsing the scientific observations they plan to carry out during the lunar flyby.

A flyby is when a spacecraft flies around a planet or the moon without landing, using the object’s gravity to change direction and head back the way it came.

After looping around the moon, the spacecraft will use its gravity to return to Earth, with splashdown expected in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on April 11 at about 00:06 GMT (8:06pm ET, on April 10).

For the astronauts, the journey is not only a technical mission but also a personal one. Seeing Earth from deep space is a reminder of humanity’s shared identity, said Victor Glover, the first Black astronaut to make the journey beyond low-Earth orbit.

“Trust us, you look amazing. You look beautiful,” Glover told ABC, describing the view of Earth from space. “From up here, you look like one thing. Homo sapiens is all of us – no matter where you’re from or what you look like. We’re all one people.

“We call amazing things that humans do ‘moonshots’ for a reason. This mission brought us together and showed us what we can do … when we bring our differences together and use all the strengths to accomplish something great.” (Al Jazeera)

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