Moon flyby shatters Apollo 13’s distance record, and also includes a solar eclipse

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.Their flyby of the moon — NASA’s first return since the Apollo era — even included some celestial sightseeing besides yielding rich science. It was a significant step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years.A total solar eclipse greeted the three Americans and one Canadian as the moon temporarily blocked the sun from their perspective. Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn nodded at them from the black void. The landing sites of Apollo 12 and 14 also were visible, poignant reminders of NASA’s first age of exploration more than half a century ago.In an especially riveting retro throwback, Artemis II shattered the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. NASA’s Orion capsule reached a maximum distance of 252,756 mil