Alex McColgan

Carroll Crater is a small, bright spot roughly 5.6km across, located on the western limb of the moon.

Because of its position, it is occasionally visible from Earth with a powerful telescope, allowing Wiseman's daughters, Katie and Ellie, to look up and see their mother's legacy on its surface.

What a wonderful tribute.

And there was another poignant moment in this phase of the mission.

This is Earthset, a haunting image taken by Commander Wiseman that echoes the iconic Earthrise image taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders some 58 years ago as he too flew around the moon.

It truly makes you appreciate how special Earth and our place in the universe is.

And there are still more spectacular images on the way.

As Orion moved into the moon's shadow, the crew experienced a total solar eclipse from a vantage point never before seen by human eyes.

For nearly an hour, the Moon, appearing five times larger than the Sun, blocked out the solar disk.

The astronauts used special eclipse glasses to study the Sun's corona, the Sun's outermost atmospheric layer, which appeared as a glowing halo around the dark lunar disk.

In this image from the onboard cameras, you'll notice a faint, ghostly glow clinging to the left edge of the moon.

This is Earthshine, sunlight reflecting off our own planet to light up the lunar limb.

Even more impressively, with the sun's glare hidden behind the moon, the crew witnessed a rare planetary parade.

Saturn, Mars, Mercury, and Venus all appeared in images of the eclipse as bright point sources in the dark background.

This darkness also allowed for one of the moon's most startling scientific discoveries.

While observing the night side of the moon, Wiseman and Hansen spotted quick flashes of light.

These were impact flashes, millisecond-long bursts of bluish-white light caused by micrometeorites slamming into the lunar surface at tens of kilometers per second and vaporizing on impact.

The crew logged at least six distinct impacts.

In Houston's science evaluation room, geologists were jumping up and down with delight.

Witnessing these events in real time is exceptionally rare and proves that the Moon is under a much more constant bombardment than previous models suggested.