what will nasas artemis ii astronauts see on the moon?

NASA’s Artemis II astronauts will see a big, gray ball that has crater-shaped holes, like when you drop a rock in a sandbox and it makes a round pit.

Imagine you’re playing outside on a sunny day. You look up at the sky, and there’s a big, bright light, that’s the Sun. Now imagine you’re standing on a place where everything is dusty and bumpy, like the floor of a toy box full of pebbles. That’s what it’s like being on the Moon.

The astronauts will see craters, big round holes made by space rocks that hit the Moon long ago. It’s like when you throw a rock into a puddle and it makes ripples, but on the Moon, the rock just hits and stays there, making a hole.

They might also see mountains, not ones you can climb, but big hills made of moon dust and rocks, stretching far across the gray surface. It’s like looking at a giant sandbox from way up high.

And when they look back toward Earth, it will look like a big blue ball with white clouds, just like how we see the Moon from here!