NASA marked Earth Day 2026 by releasing four new photographs of Earth captured by the Artemis II crew during their April lunar flyby, and the timing could not have been more fitting.
The images were taken from the Orion spacecraft as it circled the Moon's far side, showing Earth's curvature, swirling cloud formations, vast ocean stretches, and a crescent Earthset view from deep space. Each shot frames the planet as a lone, fragile object suspended against the darkness, exactly the kind of perspective Earth Day was built around.
The Earthset image in particular drew immediate comparisons to Apollo 8's iconic Earthrise photograph from 1968, one of the most reproduced images in history and a defining visual of the environmental movement. Artemis II arriving at a similar vantage point over half a century later carries its own weight.
These are among the first photographs of Earth taken by human hands from deep space since the Apollo era, making them as historically significant as they are visually striking.