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The last time humans flew toward the Moon, Nixon was president and disco hadn't been invented. That ended yesterday. Artemis II just launched 4 astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon. Here's everything that just changed 🧵 @NASA

This is what happens when a star like our Sun starts to die. It cracks open like an egg—literally. Astronomers even call it the Egg Nebula. The hot core glows like a yolk, while shells of gas and dust surround it like egg whites. Light beams shoot out through holes carved by jets blasting from the star’s poles. Our Sun will do something similar in about 5 billion years. We’re essentially looking at our own future and it’s beautiful. 🌟 #Space #Astronomy #Hubble #ScienceTwitter #Cosmos #Nebula #SolarSystem #Astrophysics

This stunning new photo from the Artemis II crew shows the familiar near side (dark splotches we’ve known for centuries on the right) and the mysterious far side on the left for the first time with human eyes.

Humans are flying by the Moon RIGHT NOW for the first time since 1972. 4 astronauts. 252,760 miles from Earth. Seeing the lunar far side & poles views Apollo NEVER had. At 8:35 PM ET, they'll watch a solar eclipse from BEYOND the Moon. What would you do first look at Earth or the Moon ?

@NASA After 53 years since the last crewed lunar mission, four astronauts are about to experience one of the rarest views in human exploration.

Morning routine: Wake up, shave, make the bed, witness something that's never before been seen by human eyes. The Artemis II crew is preparing for today's lunar flyby, when they will see the Moon's far side.

Yes, the Apollo astronauts never saw the entire Orientale Basin with their own eyes. Apollo crews flew in much lower orbits (about 60–70 miles above the surface) and their flight paths and lighting conditions only allowed partial glimpses at best (Apollo 17 caught a small edge lit by Earthshine). The Artemis II crew is flying at a much higher altitude during this flyby, which gives them a wide-angle view of a much larger portion of the lunar surface including the full 965 km-wide Orientale Basin on the edge of the far side for the very first time in human history. That’s why NASA is calling this moment “history in the making.” Thanks for asking, happy to clarify! 🌕

@explorespacegv @NASA @NASAArtemis So the Apollo astronauts didn’t see it when they went to the moon?

History in the making In this new image from our @NASAArtemis II crew, you can see Orientale basin on the right edge of the lunar disk. This mission marks the first time the entire basin has been seen with human eyes.

@NASA It’s our closest cosmic neighbor, just 3 days away, giving us a 4.5-billion-year-old time capsule that Earth can’t offer because of erosion and plate tectonics.

The Moon is special in so many ways. Scientifically, it provides opportunities we simply don't have on Earth. It's near enough to reach with robotic explorers and humans. And for all of us on Earth, it's special because it's ours. 🩶

90,000 miles from Earth. 168,000 miles from the Moon. The Artemis 2 crew just sent back their first photos and Earth has never looked more fragile, more blue, or more beautiful. This is what it looks like when humans leave home. 🌍.

@NASA On their fifth flight day, the Artemis II crew wakes up to "Working Class Heroes (Work)" by CeeLo Green , a perfect motivational anthem as they continue testing Orion in deep space, hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth.

We're going to work! As our Artemis II astronauts begin their fifth flight day, they're listening to today's wakeup song: "Working Class Heroes (Work)" by CeeLo Green.

Artemis is structured differently deliberately. Commercial partners share the infrastructure. SpaceX flies the crew to the surface. 38 nations have signed the Artemis Accords, creating international political buy-in. The risk and the program's survival is spread across more actors than ever before. It's harder to cancel something when 38 governments and multiple corporations have committed to it. But harder is not impossible. The 53-year gap between Apollo and Artemis isn't an engineering puzzle. It's a lesson in what modern democracies find genuinely difficult: committing to something bigger than an election cycle.

The deeper issue: nobody answered "why go back?" Apollo's purpose was geopolitical defeat the USSR. After the Cold War that argument collapsed. Scientific returns from human missions are genuinely limited compared to robotic exploration. Commercial returns remain speculative. Prestige alone has never secured a multi-decade budget through multiple administrations. Without a compelling "why," every program became optional.

We landed on the Moon 6 times. Then stopped for 53 years, not because the technology disappeared, because three separate presidents tried to go back and all three programs were cancelled. The real story of why has almost nothing to do with rockets. 🌕🧵

An astronaut 200,000 miles from Earth just delivered the most human message of 2026. "You're on a spaceship called Earth created to give us a place to live in the universe. Trust me. You are special." Victor Glover. Easter Sunday. On his way to the Moon. 🌍🚀