The Artemis II crew is back on Earth. The science is just getting started 🚀

Here in Houston, teams of scientists have already started digging into the data that the Artemis II crew has collected. What they learn from this process will shape the next missions to the Moon.
NASA is preparing to send astronauts on increasingly difficult journeys, exploring more of the Moon and laying the groundwork required to go even further.

Future missions will land astronauts in the lunar South Pole region for the first time. They'll investigate the landscapes around their landing sites and deploy science instruments on the lunar surface. Generations of scientists will analyze the samples they bring home.

The data that future explorers collect about moonquakes, buried water ice, and the effects of radiation on plants and space crops will inform our future beyond Earth. Know before you go. Survive and thrive. Return safely. That’s NASA exploration science.

📷 Info: This shot is intentionally overexposed. For scientific analysis, the lunar science team requested multiple images of the same scene with different exposure settings—including overexposed, underexposed, & standard. Each highlights different aspects of the surface.