NASA STILL HAS THE RIGHT STUFF: At 5:07 pm PDT on April 10th, the crew of Artemis II splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean southwest of San Diego. During their mission to the Moon, the four astronauts flew 694,481 miles in total, farther than any humans have ever traveled before. A solar eclipse, a lunar meteor shower, and the best views of Earth in 50 years were among the highlights of the mission. Next up: Artemis III in 2027.
AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS PHOTOGRAPH ARTEMIS: During the Apollo program 50 years ago, amateur astronomers photographed NASA's capsules traveling to and from the Moon. The tradition continues for Artemis. For example, Bill Williams recorded this movie on April 10th:
"I imagine the astronauts did not suspect that amateur astronomers were spying on them on the morning of their re-entry," says Williams. "They were easily studied from the Chiefland Astronomy Village in north Florida."
"I recorded the movie before sunrise from 4:00AM EDT until 4:27AM EDT using a 0.37M RCOS telescope," he explains. "The spaceship passed 9th magnitude star SAO 208939 near Scorpius' tail and appeared an estimated 12th magnitude. The JPL-Horizons ephemeris was so accurate!"
"As twilight was taking over this morning, I grabbed a few photons from Comet PanSTARRS (C/2025 R3)! I wonder if the astronauts looked out their spaceship window to see beautiful comet. I certainly would have!!!" he says.
Realtime Artemis II Photo Gallery
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"METEOR CRATER" CRYSTAL PENDANT: Have you heard of Moissanite? It's a very rare mineral discovered in Arizona's Meteor Crater by 19th-century chemist Henri Moissan. At first, he thought it was diamond, but later realized it was even more rare. It came from meteorites! On March 4th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a Moissanite pendant to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $199.95. Almost indistinguishable from natural diamond, the 3-carat crystal is held by a sterling silver frame with the words "I Love You" engraved on the back. It's a truly out of this world gift.
The students are selling space jewelry to pay the helium bill for their high altitude ballooning program. Each pendant comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
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Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
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Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
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