Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Path of Artemis II

NASA ^ | 6 Apr, 2026 | The Path of Artemis II Video Credit: NASA, GSFC, Artemis II, SVS

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Why doesn't Artemis II land on the Moon? The main reason is that Artemis II is primarily a test mission designed to make a future Artemis missions -- which will land humans on the Moon -- better prepared. Similarly, NASA's Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 went right near the Moon as tests before Apollo 11 -- which landed. As the trajectory in the featured animated video shows, Artemis II will loop around both the Earth and the Moon before returning to the Earth about 10 days after launch. The Artemis II mission will take humans outside the Earth's magnetosphere for the first time since the Apollo missions 50 years ago. In the video, particles from the solar wind are shown as streaks, while the Earth's reacting magnetosphere is shown in flickering green. The Earth's magnetosphere is important in deflecting powerful particles arriving from the Sun as well as creating picturesque auroras visible from the Earth's surface.

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TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

[MtnClimber]

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Todays image is a video at the source link.

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

Todays image is a video at the source link.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

With AI now, they should be able to make the next landing on the Moon much more realistic.

*SNORT* :)

[TangoLimaSierra]

Here's an up to the minute tracker. https://issinfo.net/artemis.html

[Big Red Badger]

Flat Earthers United!
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(Meeting at The Edge)

[telescope115]

Neat app! Thanks for the link!

[shotgun]

And not take so long!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[Big Red Badger]

Yuppers!
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Ya Can’t trust’em