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© NASAScreen capture from NASA's Artemis II Live Views
Artemis II were giddy (their words!) on the evening of April 6th when they witnessed explosions on the lunar surface. Meteoroids were hitting the Moon. "We saw at least five," reported mission commander Reid Wiseman.

The meteors appeared in middle of a solar eclipse. About an hour after the crew made their closest approach to the farside of the Moon, the sun disappeared behind the lunar disk, giving the astronauts a chance to view the first solar eclipse ever seen by humans from behind the Moon.

The sun's corona surrounded the Moon and was visible "for at least 10 solar diameters from the lunar limb," according to Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. This allowed mission specialist Christina Koch to photograph mountains and other topography silhouetted by the sun's atmosphere along a wide arc of the Moons edge.

The lunar meteors were a complete surprise. "We're seeing them near and south of the Moon's equator," reported Wiseman during the live webcast. Later, his crewmate Victor Glover spotted one near the Moon's South Pole.

Lunar meteors are different than Earth meteors. Here on Earth, meteoroids burn up in the atmosphere. On the airless Moon, they slam into the surface, creating an explosion amounting to many kilotons of TNT. NASA has been monitoring these impacts since 2006, logging about 20 per year on average. The crew of Artemis II saw 5 or 6 in a single hour.

The Moon was mostly dark during the eclipse and meteor shower, but not completely dark. The soft glow of Earth itself was cast across the lunar terrain. "The Earthshine is unreal," reported Wiseman. "Humans have not evolved to see what we are seeing. It's hard to describe. It's amazing!"

Indeed. The crew is downloading their photos to Earth now — including Koch's eclipse sequence -- and some of them will be released during NASA's April 7th press conference currently scheduled for 4:00 pm EDT. Prepare to be amazed.