Starstruck, Artemis II

The Milky Way, photographed from outside Earth's atmosphere by a crew heading home from the Moon. April 7, 2026. On the way back from the lunar flyby, the Artemis II crew turned the camera away from both the Moon and Earth and pointed it at everything else. The result: the Milky Way, our home galaxy, captured without a single photon of light pollution or atmospheric distortion in the way. What you're looking at spans over 100,000 light-years. The galaxy's two main spiral arms wrap off a central bar of stars. Somewhere along one of those arms, about halfway from the center, is Earth. The place the crew was heading back to. This is the kind of image ground-based astrophotographers spend years trying to achieve. The Artemis II crew shot it from a window, 250,000 miles from the nearest streetlight. This image retains its original framing as captured aboard Orion. The visible grain is inherent to deep space photography conditions. We keep it as is. It's part of what makes this real. Photo: NASA / Artemis II, Day 7