Astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission captured a breathtaking image of the Milky Way during their return from a historic lunar flyby. Taken from deep space, the photo reveals the galaxy’s dense star fields, nebulae, and distant structures with remarkable clarity
The Artemis II crew captured this breathtaking photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Photo Credit: NASA
The NASA Artemis II crew made history twice on April 7, 2026. A few hours short of two days after their historic lunar flyby, in which astronauts made history by sending four human beings farther away than any previous humans had ever been, Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen aimed their camera at the universe. Through the window of their Orion spacecraft, Integrity, they took a spectacular picture of the Milky Way, our home galaxy.
According to NASA, the image reveals the glowing ribbon of the galactic plane, where the vast majority of the Milky Way's stars are concentrated. Rather than looking toward the galaxy's bright core, the shot peers deep into one of its spiral arms — a region rich with stars, gas, and dust. Star clusters and dim nebulae are threaded throughout the frame, and the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy, appears as a faint hazy patch nearby. Free of Earth's atmosphere, the crew achieved a cosmic clarity rarely possible from the ground.
The Milky Way is classified as a huge barred spiral galaxy with four spiral arms. The two prominent arms in the galaxy are the Perseus Arm and the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, which originate from the central bar, which contains old stars. The distance between Earth and the galactic center is about 26,000 light-years, with Earth situated in the Orion Spur. At the center of the galaxy is a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. Our solar system orbits the Milky Way at 515,000 miles per hour.
Get your daily dose of tech news, reviews, and insights, in under 80 characters on Gadgets 360 Turbo. Connect with fellow tech lovers on our Forum. Follow us on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News for instant updates. Catch all the action on our YouTube channel.