Lucy Devine
Artemis II astronauts, who have recently returned from a 10-day space mission, have revealed the 'weird' experience they had as they approached the dark side of the Moon.
The Artemis II crew were launched into space on April 1 and made their safe return to Earth nine days later in what was dubbed the 'perfect splashdown'.
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen were the four astronauts who made the trip, traveling further into space than ever before. The crew were also able to travel around the far side of the Moon, which is commonly referred to as the 'dark side'.
Despite its nickname, it isn’t actually dark and actually gets more sunlight than the side we do see. However, due to something called tidal locking, the same side of the Moon is always facing Earth, so we never get to see the other one.
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Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the astronauts spoke about the moment they realised they were further into space than ever before.
Hansen explained: "It actually happened earlier than we thought, we looked at the Moon and we thought 'oh that looks weird'. The angle we had we were now seeing parts of the far side from a distance, we all glued to the windows."
The astronauts also spoke about which moment was the most nerve-wracking, with Koch explaining that re-entry is much more unnerving than launch. She said: "Coming back to a planet is no joke... on re-entry you come back, you are a literal plasma ball and you see the fire outside every single window."
Glover, meanwhile, has previously reflected on the mission being shared with everyone back on Earth.
"I think something that we all feel and we try to share is how much we want to reflect back to you all how we did this, not we as a crew, we as countries and as humans did this," he said, as per BBC News.
Glover went on to say that during the mission, he and his fellow astronauts reflected on 'how beautiful Earth is'.
Elsewhere, Hansen said his faith in people has been deepened since flying to the Moon.
"We don't always do great things. We're not always in our integrity, but our default is to be good and to be good to one another," he said, adding: "What I've seen has brought me more joy, but more hope for our future."