Artemis II astronauts channel Apollo 8 with a striking Earthset photo

HOUSTON (AP) — The Artemis II astronauts are now forever intertwined with Apollo 8.

A day after the historic lunar flyaround, NASA on Tuesday released striking new photos taken by the U.S.-Canadian crew.

The four astronauts channeled Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968 with their own: Earthset, showing our planet setting behind the gray, pockmarked moon. Another photo captures the total solar eclipse that occurred when the moon blocked the sun from the crew’s perspective.

The three Americans and one Canadian are now headed home, with a splashdown in the Pacific set for Friday. In the meantime, scientists at Houston's Mission Control are poring over the stream of moon photos beaming down.

Apollo 8's three astronauts became the world's first lunar visitors, orbiting the moon on Christmas Eve 1968. Their Earthrise shot became a symbol of the modern-day environmental movement.

Artemis II marks NASA's first return to the moon with astronauts — a critical step toward a lunar landing by another crew in two years.

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In this image provided by NASA, The Artemis II crew captured from lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun on Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, Artemis II crew members, from left, Victor Glover Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch, pause to turn the camera around for a selfie midway through their lunar observation period of the Moon during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew captured this image of the Vavilov Crater on the Moon during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew, counterclockwise from top left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover pose with eclipse viewers during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, The Artemis II crew captured from lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun on Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, The Artemis II crew captured this view of an Earthset on Monday, April 6, 2026, as they flew around the Moon. (NASA via AP)

A Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at another Russian oil terminal overnight, local officials in Russia’s Krasnodar region said Saturday, in what appeared to be the latest attack on Moscow’s vital oil industry.

Authorities in the city of Novorossiysk said falling drone debris sparked a fire at an oil terminal, injuring two people. Russia’s Astra news outlet said Ukrainian drones struck the Sheskharis oil terminal and depot, the terminus for Russian state-controlled pipeline company Transneft’s main oil pipelines in the region. Images posted by Astra appeared to show smoke rising above the oil terminal, but they could not be verified.

On Saturday afternoon, Ukraine's General Staff said its forces had struck the Sheskharis oil terminal overnight.

“The facility provides shipment of oil and oil products for export and is involved in meeting the needs of the Russian army,” the General Staff wrote on Telegram, adding that Ukrainian forces had also hit a tanker in the Black Sea belonging to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet.”

Ukraine has expanded its mid- and long-range strike capabilities, deploying drone and missile technology that it has developed domestically to battle Russia’s 4-year-old invasion. Attacks on Russian oil assets that play a key part in funding the invasion have become almost daily occurrences.

Meanwhile, the death toll from a Ukrainian drone strike overnight into Friday on a college dormitory building in Starobilsk, a city in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Luhansk region, rose to 12, Moscow-installed officials said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday denounced the attack on the dormitory as a “crime” and ordered the military to submit its proposals for retaliation. He said there were no military or law enforcement facilities near the college.

At a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on the strike, held at the request of Russia, Ukrainian Ambassador Melnyk Andrii denied his Russian counterpart’s accusations of war crimes, calling them a “pure propaganda show” and asserting that the May 22 operations “exclusively targeted the Russian war machine.”

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Fragments of Russian missiles lie on the field against the background of the working farmers near the front line in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

This photo released by Moscow-appointed head of Russian-controlled Luhansk region Leonid Pasechnik Telegram channel on Friday, May 22, 2026, shows a university college building damaged by Ukrainian drones in Starobilsk, Ukraine. (Head of Russian-controlled Luhansk region Leonid Pasechnik Telegram channel via AP)

This photo released by Moscow-appointed head of Russian-controlled Luhansk region Leonid Pasechnik Telegram channel on Friday, May 22, 2026, shows dormitory of a university college building damaged by Ukrainian drones in Starobilsk, Ukraine. (Head of Russian-controlled Luhansk region Leonid Pasechnik Telegram channel via AP)

A farmer carries a fragment of a Russian drone on an agricultural field near the front line in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

Farmers collect fragments of a Russian missile that hit an agricultural field near the front line in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)