Artemis II crew spots 'brownish, greenish' patches on the Moon

An astronaut from the Artemis II mission, a lunar flyby marking humanity’s return to the Moon’s vicinity, said that the celestial body is more colorful than previously thought. 

Artemis II mission specialist Jeremy Hansen said the crew spotted “brownish” and “greenish hues" on parts of the Moon.

The Canadian astronaut said there were green patches observed on the Moon's Aristarchus crater. 

“And I’ll tell you like right now, Aristarchus, the plateau, is hard for me to see from this window, but it has greenish hues to me. It was very unique. I didn’t see anything like that anywhere else from this side of the moon,” he told a live broadcast of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on April 6 (April 7 in the Philippines).

Hansen also said that the Artemis II crew saw brown areas on the Moon. 

“And then I see a lot of this what I will call brownish-hue area. There are a number of them,” he said.

He added that a “huge region” of brown patch was spotted in the west part of the Moon’s Orientale Basin, which he described as “kind of like a piece of pie.” 

“It was remarkable listening to the crew describe the stunning views during the flyby,” said Jacob Bleacher, NASA’s chief exploration scientist. 

“At first, their descriptions didn’t quite match what we were seeing on our screens. Now that higher resolution images are coming down, we can finally experience the moments they were trying to share and truly appreciate the scientific return provided by these images and our other research on this mission.” 

The Artemis II mission was launched on April 1 and set a new record for the farthest distance that humans have ever traveled from Earth (252,756 miles or 406,771 kilometers).

The Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon's surface by 2028 and create a permanent US presence there. —VBL, GMA News