Our New Earthrise

As Artemis II heads for the Moon, we see ourselves again

In 1968, a single photograph shifted our perspective forever.

During the Apollo 8 mission, astronaut William Anders turned his camera toward the lunar horizon and captured something no human had ever seen before: Earth, rising above the surface of The Moon. Our home, suspended in the vastness. Fragile, luminous, alive. The image would come to be known as Earthrise, and in a single frame, it revealed something we had never fully felt before. A shared and finite world, protected only by a thin veil of atmosphere holding everything we love.

That moment changed us. It allowed us to step outside ourselves and see the whole. Only two years after Earthrise was shared with the globe, a new planetary movement was mobilized, with the inaugural Earth Day held on April 22, 1970, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established on December 2, 1970.

And yet, there is something staggering about where we stand now. Up until now, the last time humans traveled to the Moon was during the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. More than half a century has passed. Most people alive today have never lived in a time when humans moved beyond Earth orbit. Entire generations shaping the future of this planet have never experienced a living, present-day Earthrise moment. It exists for most of us only as an artifact.

On Wednesday, April 1, 2026, at 6:35pm EDT, Artemis II astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Reid Wiseman lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, embarking on a 10-day journey to the Moon and back. When they make their flyby around the Moon on Monday, April 6, they will witness Earthrise for themselves. And as they transmit their images back to us, they offer our generation something we have never had before: A contemporary mirror of ourselves, seen from beyond the boundary of our own world.

“Hello World” photo taken by Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman. Courtesy of NASA.

Artemis II astronauts in the Orion spacecraft: Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover. Courtesy of NASA.

Artemis II lunar flyby trajectory. Courtesy of NASA.

Earthrise, a photograph, offered us a profound shift in awareness. The recognition that we are not separate from the system we inhabit, but embedded within it, dependent on it, and responsible for it. From that distance, the divisions we hold so tightly begin to dissolve. There are no borders, no boundaries, no abstractions. Only a single, living world, suspended in the vastness. Astronauts who leave the Earth’s gravity well and look back on our planet often describe this transformative experience as “The Overview Effect,” a term coined by a dear friend and the world’s leading space philosopher, Frank White. Frank describes this phenomenon as a shift in awareness that, at its core, is about truth, love, and a new identity. Truth about our place in the Cosmos. Love for the stunning place in which we find ourselves. And, a new identity of the entire interdependent cosmic system as our home.

This is why moments like this matter. Because of what they awaken in us as we reorient and remember our place in the vastness. The realization that this planet is not a backdrop to our lives, but the very condition that makes life possible and that we are all on the same cosmic journey, each crew of Spaceship Earth.

At Iceland Eclipse, and across the immersive experiences we are building at IMXP, this is the foundation. We gather around celestial moments that expand perception and invite us into a wider frame of reference. A total solar eclipse, a sudden alignment that turns day into night and reveals the hidden structure of our sky, is an invitation to step outside the default perspective and encounter reality from a different vantage point. To feel, even briefly, what it is to be part of a larger system moving through time and space.

From that place, something begins to shift. Awe opens the door. Wonder softens the edges of certainty. And from that expanded awareness, new questions emerge with clarity: Where are we coming from? Where are we going? What future are we shaping through the choices we make (and don’t make) each day? What becomes possible when we create from a felt sense of connection rather than separation?

The Artemis II crew will carry with them decades of ambition and exploration. But what they will bring back is something far more subtle, and far more powerful. A renewed image of Earth. A reflection that invites us to see ourselves again, perhaps more clearly than we have in a very long time. And when that image returns, it will belong to all of us. A new Earthrise for a new generation.