After traveling deeper into space than any other humans, the Artemis II astronauts pointed their moonship toward home Monday night, wrapping up a lunar cruise that revealed views of the far side never beheld by eyes until now.

The seven-hour flyby was the highlight of NASA’s first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian — a step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years.

The four crew members of the Artemis II mission entered the moon's sphere of influence early Monday, marking the start of their lunar flyby.

Artemis II astronauts are preparing to set a new distance record from Earth on Monday as the crew races to slingshot the Orion capsule around the moon before heading back toward Earth.

The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis II mission entered the moon's gravitational sphere of influence early Monday morning as they cruised along a path that will soon ​take them over the shadowed, lunar far side to become the farthest-flying humans in history.

Artemis II and its four-man crew have entered the Moon’s “sphere of influence,” meaning the spacecraft is more affected by lunar gravity than the Earth’s pull. The transition occurred at a distance of 39,

The crew has gone farther from Earth than any space crew in decades, but early on, things got a little clogged up.

The crew’s Orion capsule entered what’s known as the lunar sphere of influence at around 12:41 a.m. ET Monday, crossing into the region of space where the moon’s gravitational pull is stronger than the pull of Earth’s.