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.
A Window Into the Galactic Plane
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.
Our Cosmic Address
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.
Source link
#Deep #Space #Artemis #Astronauts #Capture #Stunning #View #Milky
