Source: NASA AROW. The crew of three Americans and one Canadian are to return to Houston on Saturday after concluding a journey that sent humans around the moon for the first time since 1972.

In what was the most highly anticipated moment of the Artemis II mission, four astronauts flew around the moon Monday, snapping photos and making detailed observations from the window of their Orion spacecraft. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen captured a slew of photos of the moon’s rugged terrain, sprawling impact craters and vast, dark plains.

• A step toward the future: Declared a “mission well accomplished,” Artemis II has opened a path to return to the surface of the moon with future missions, NASA officials say.

Lunar craters tell us the history not only of the Moon, but of other worlds, too. On the Moon, where there’s no liquid water or wind, evidence of our solar system's impact history has been preserved for billions of years. ... Pierazzo crater imaged by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

“Y’all, we did it,” Lori ... in a post-landing news briefing. “We sent four amazing people to the moon and safely returned them to Earth for the first time in more than 50 years....