Earth-Based Telescope Captures Blurry Image of Artemis II Crew Orbiting Moon

The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia captured a unique, pixelated image of NASA's Artemis II crew orbiting the moon, marking a potential record for the longest-distance image of humans taken from Earth. Released by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the image depicts radio waves emitted by the Orion capsule, named Integrity, while it was approximately 213,000 miles away. Although the visual is abstract, consisting of black and white pixels representing distance and frequency shifts, it signifies a major technological achievement. The telescope tracked the four astronauts—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—with extreme precision, measuring movement within 0.2 millimeters per second. This data supports future Artemis missions aimed at establishing a lunar base. The Artemis II mission, which launched on April 1 and splashed down on April 10, saw the crew travel further from Earth than any humans in history. The image serves as a testament to the collaboration between scientific institutions and NASA, highlighting the capabilities of ground-based radio astronomy in tracking deep space exploration.