NASA Report Details the Subtle Colors Artemis II Astronauts Saw on the Moon

For most of human history, the moon has listed exactly one color on its résumé: gray. Then four astronauts flew past it this spring, looked out the window and started describing it like a paint aisle.

On Oct. 7, 2026, NASA released the Artemis II Preliminary Lunar Science Report, along with more than 800 GB of lunar science data.² The 130-page report catalogs what Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen saw during their April 6 flyby. The highlights are yellow, brown, green, blue and tan.¹

These are subtle hues the crew saw with their own eyes, not neon. Nobody is repainting the nursery rhymes. But for a place long described as gray, it is a notable update.

A Very Long Look Out a Very Expensive Window

The mission launched April 1, 2026, and lasted 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes.³ The crew spent nearly seven hours circling the moon from about 4,000 miles away.¹

They did not just wing it. The astronauts trained for more than two years in lunar geology and observation. That meant visiting craters on Earth, sitting through classroom lessons, running simulated flybys and packing reference materials aboard their Orion capsule.¹ (Somewhere, a geology professor is telling a sleepy lecture hall that this stuff really does come up later.)

The results now live in NASA's Planetary Data System, a public archive. The release includes more than 11,000 full-resolution images and video, 8.5 hours of audio of the crew's science observations, and images the crew marked up with their own notes. NASA calls it the first planetary science dataset captured primarily by humans in more than half a century.²

The Moon Has Range, Actually

The colors showed up across volcanic plains and at crater edges.¹ On flyby day, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen noted greenish hues near the Aristarchus Plateau, and Koch said the moon looked browner the more she looked.⁷

Pilot Victor Glover summed it up, according to Live Science: "There are so many colors now." He also called it "quite a wicked view."¹ Mission specialist Christina Koch went full poet and described "a jaundiced cheek of the Moon."¹

The Aristarchus Plateau is a raised region on the northwestern edge of the moon's near side. It holds one of the densest collections of ancient volcanic features, including dark lava deposits and colorful volcanic glasses.¹

So where does the green come from? The report's authors say the orange and green tones could be linked to volcanic glass beads, rich in titanium for orange and magnesium for green. Apollo 15 and 17 brought home similar beads from other parts of the moon.¹ That is a possibility, not a verdict, and the whole report is labeled preliminary.⁵

Then there is the Orientale Basin, a large, young impact basin with several rings around it, like a bullseye the size of a region. The crew noted gray, brown, tan and green there. Live Science reports Koch said the outermost ring had "almost swamp-like colors."¹ To be clear, no swamps were found. The frogs have presumably not applied.

Eyeballs, Still Undefeated

Cameras are great. But the report argues that trained people noticing things in real time add something cameras alone don't. In the authors' words, "The Artemis II mission demonstrated the exceptional value of human observation and cognition as scientific assets in planetary exploration."¹

The report also formally describes five lunar impact flashes, the bright blips that happen when something smacks into the moon, which the crew spotted themselves.⁶

What comes next is the fun part for scientists: digging through the open data. Live Science notes the colors could help inform where future missions land and explore.¹

Meanwhile, the moon may want to update that résumé. Primary color: gray. Special skills: tan, brown and a little bit of swamp.