For days, the breathtaking visuals captured during NASA's Artemis II moon mission have captivated people around the world.
The celestial wonders the four astronauts observed and documented since launching April 1 from Florida have revealed Earth, our moon and the surrounding cosmos in new light.
Now that the Artemis II crew has come home in a splashdown near California, here's a look at some of the most stunning and mission-defining images taken during a journey that will set the stage for the first human moon landing since 1972.
The landing comes about nine days after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and about four days after a trailblazing flyby of the moon. On April 6, the astronauts flew farther from Earth than anyone in human history while seeing sights of the moon's far side never seen in person from no closer than 4,067 miles above the surface.
Amid the four-day journey back to Earth, the Orion spacecraft used our planet's gravity to naturally "slingshot," or pull the vehicle back home, negating the need for propulsion or much fuel.
