Artemis II crew saw a life-changing view. The story of a viral photo.

Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAYSat, April 4, 2026 at 7:30 PM UTC

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As the four astronauts on the 10-day Artemis II mission around the moon got their first clear glimpse of Earth, the view of their home planet in the distance stopped them in their tracks.

They captured a remarkable photo of Earth from the first crewed moon mission in 50 years. The photo, taken by Commander Reid Wiseman on April 2 from the Orion spacecraft's window, showed Earth from tens of thousands of miles away. It captured the "spectacular blues and browns" of the planet, and even caught two auroras lighting up the atmosphere.

The image has dazzled those back on Earth who are following the Artemis II mission and may never get the chance to see our home planet from space for themselves. But the view has also had a profound impact on the crew, the first humans to leave Earth's orbit since 1972.

"There was a moment about an hour ago where Mission Control Houston reoriented our spacecraft as the sun was setting behind Earth, and I don't know what we all expected to see in that moment," Wiseman told reporters during a question-and-answer session from space on April 2, describing all the detail the crew could see of Earth. "It was the most spectacular moment and it paused all four of us in our tracks."

In an image posted by NASA on April 3, 2026, shows a full disk image of Earth, as seen from the Orion capsule. The planet is pale blue, swirling with white clouds and glowing slightly lighter blue in places from reflected light. From the lower left, a large brown landmass is Africa, with the Iberian peninsula twinkling with lights just where the planet curves. In the upper right, aurora glow in a thin green glow, just barely separated from the planet’s surface. Earth is set against the black of space.

Astronauts in the past have gotten to see glimpses of auroras, lightning strikes and metropolitan areas lit up as evidence of human life. Seeing Earth from above has had such a transformative influence on astronauts that there is an entire psychological phenomenon to describe it, called the overview effect. It can change an astronaut's entire perspective on Earth and life itself.

The astronauts will also get to see parts of the moon that nobody has ever laid eyes on before, the far side not viewable from Earth. That will happen during a roughly six-hour window on April 6 when the sun, moon and the Orion spacecraft will be aligned in just the right way so the astronauts can see about 20% of the far side of the moon, lit by the sun, NASA said.

More than halfway to the moon: See where Artemis II is right now

1 / 0See photos from space during NASA's Artemis II mission so farArtemis II crew members Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover answer questions from reporters during the first downlink event of their mission.Here's what astronauts have said about looking back at Earth from space

The Artemis II crew members described "breathtaking" view of Earth, and described the details of what they were seeing. From space, they can see the coastline of continents, rivers, thunder clouds and the South Pole lit up, Artemis II Mission Specialist Christina Koch said, reported NPR. The photo captured by Wiseman shows auroras on the poles, lit up in green.

"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 the beautiful beam of the sunset," Koch told reporters in a live stream from space.

"You could see the entire globe from pole to pole, you could see Africa, Europe and if you looked really close, you could see the Northern Lights," Wiseman said.

See the images: NASA shares striking photos of Earth during Artemis II moon trip

Astronauts for decades have tried to put into words the experience of seeing Earth from various missions. Alan Shepard was the first American to view Earth from space in 1961 from the Freedom 7 Mercury Capsule during a 15-minute suborbital flight.

"If somebody'd said before the flight, 'Are you going to get carried away looking at the Earth from the moon?' I would have said, 'No, no way,'" Shepard said after walking on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. "But yet, when I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the moon, I cried."

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The International Space Station has a particularly good view of Earth from its seven-windowed cupola module. Former NASA astronaut Nicole Stott said she looked for her home state of Florida during her first trip to the ISS in 2009.

"I wanted to go to the window and see it, and then realized somewhere down the line that I wasn’t looking at Florida that same way anymore,” she said. “I still wanted to see Florida, but Florida had just become this special part of home, which is Earth. We’re all earthlings.”

What is the overview effect?

The life-altering effects of viewing Earth from space have garnered psychological research, and in 1987 were dubbed the "overview effect" by space philosopher and author Frank White, who first considered the phenomenon while on a cross-country flight and decided to start interviewing astronauts. One of the most common experiences they shared was seeing the reality that there are no borders or boundaries separating people, he said.

"And what the astronauts were telling me was, I, I knew before I went into orbit, or went to the moon, that there weren’t any little dotted lines. But it’s knowing intellectually versus experiencing it," White said on a NASA podcast in 2019.

A common conclusion astronauts made from their observations, White said: "We are really all in this together. Our fate is bound up with people that we may think are really different from them. We may have different religions, we may have different politics. But ultimately, we are connected. Totally connected."

It's a difficult concept to convey, White said, "because all you have is words." To fully understand, you need to see it for yourself, he said.

Koch described the overview effect from the International Space Station this way, in a NASA publication from November 2025:

“The overview effect is when you’re looking through the cupola and you see the Earth as it exists with the whole universe in the background. You see the thin blue line of the atmosphere, and then when you’re on the dark side of the Earth, you actually see this very thin green line that shows you where the atmosphere is. What you realize is every single person that you know is sustained and inside of that green line and everything else outside of it is completely inhospitable. You don’t see borders, you don’t see religious lines, you don’t see political boundaries. All you see is Earth and you see that we are way more alike than we are different.”

"Are you going to try to live your life a little differently? Are you going to really choose to be a member of this community of Earth?" Artemis II Pilot Victor Glover previously said.

On April 2, when asked about division back on Earth, Glover said: "Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful. And from up here you also look like one thing. Homo sapiens, all of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like, we're all one people."

Compare 1972 Apollo 'blue marble' photo to Artemis II Earth photo

Two photos taken more than a half-century apart were compared side-by-side by NASA in a post to social media this week.

The first, the famous "blue marble" photo taken in December 1972, was captured by the crew of the Apollo 17 mission, the last crewed mission to land on the moon.

The second photo was taken April 2, 2026, during Artemis II, which won't include a lunar landing but paves the way for future landings and space exploration.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Stunned Artemis II crew captured a viral photo of Earth

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