Earthrise

Earthrise is the moment Earth reappears above the lunar horizon as seen from a spacecraft, most famously captured in a photograph taken by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders on 24 December 1968, which became one of the most reproduced images in history. On 6 April 2026, the Artemis II crew experienced Earthrise at 7:25 PM EDT after a 40-minute window in which Earth had been completely absent from their sky.

The 1968 Apollo 8 Earthrise photograph showed Earth as a fragile blue marble rising over the barren lunar surface, a perspective that shaped the modern environmental movement and remains a defining image of the 20th century. Apollo 8 also captured the first human experience of the Earth-Moon transit; Artemis II repeated it more than half a century later with a larger crew at greater distance.

The Artemis II Earthrise followed Earthset at 6:45 PM EDT in a paired 40-minute sequence that coincided with the mission's communications blackout. The crew could not see or contact Earth simultaneously, an experience of isolation without precedent in human history.