- The Artemis II crew captured a photo of the Orientale Basin on April 6 during lunar flyby
- NASA shared the image showing the basin's rings and suggested names for two smaller craters
- Social media users likened the crater's appearance to a smiley face, hippo, and manga characters
A photo of a giant lunar crater taken by the Artemis II crew aboard the Orion spacecraft has caught social media's whimsy. During the historic lunar flyby on Monday (April 6), the crew captured the Orientale Basin and its multiple rings. NASA posted the image of the 3.8 billion-year-old crater on social media, only to be inundated with replies from social media users who claimed that the Orientale Basin resembles a smiley face.
"The Artemis II crew captured this image showing the rings of the Orientale basin during their lunar flyby on April 6," NASA captioned the pic, adding: "At the 10 o'clock position of the Orientale basin, the two smaller craters, which the Artemis II crew has suggested be named Integrity & Carroll, are visible."
As the pic went viral, space nerds as well as amateurs came up with their own interpretation of the crater. While some saw a hippo, others saw popular Japanese manga characters.
"It appears highly probable that this is Doraemon," said one user, while another added: "Cute like a hippo."
Artemis II Mission
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed lunar flyby in over 50 years, acting as a crucial test flight for the Artemis programme to enable a lunar landing by 2028. The crewed mission will evaluate the SLS rocket and Orion capsule, paving the way for sustained human lunar exploration and future Mars missions.
Led by Mission Commander Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II crew includes NASA's Victor Glover and Christina Koch alongside Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. The four-member crew spent around seven hours taking photographs and gathering notes about surface features on the moon during the historic flyby on Monday.
