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Ephemeris: 10/07/2025 – Just how close will the Artemis 2 crew actually get to the Moon?

October 7, 2025 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 7th. Today the Sun will be up for 11 hours and 23 minutes, setting at 7:11, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:49. The Moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 7:15 this evening.

I was thinking about the Artemis 2 mission which is scheduled to go around the Moon and back in the first half of next year. They will be on what’s called a free return trajectory which in a diagram that looks like a big Figure 8 going from the Earth, around the Moon and back again. The closest they will get to the Moon is on the far side, opposite to the Earth, of about 4,800 miles or 7700 kilometers. Dividing that out, that’s about one 50th of the Moon’s distance from the Earth, which is the same thing as observing the Moon with a small telescope using 50 power magnification. Of course the view would be spectacular, of a part of the Moon we never see from the Earth. Of course with binoculars, they will be able to see much closer.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

Artemis 2 planned a trajectory out around the Moon and back.
Artemis 2 planned a trajectory out around the Moon and back. This diagram is completely wrong as far as distances go. The Moon is about 30 Earth diameters away, and the astronauts will come no closer than 2¼ times the Moon’s diameter away from it. Credit: NASA.
Earth-Moon size and distance to scale. Screen shot from a video showing the speed of light at that scale.
Categories: Artemis Program, Ephemeris Program