Space

5:10 PM PT -- It was a picture perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean ... right on time at 5:07 PM PT. The capsule floated down to the water under 3 deployed parachutes, just minutes after it was speeding through the air at more than 23,000 MPH!

Naval boats are speeding toward the capsule to recover the Artemis crew.

Artemis II is wrapping up its historic mission after nine and a half days ... and it’s all coming back down to Earth in a big way, which you can watch on the livestream here.

Astronauts -- Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Commander Reid Wiseman -- are set to make a Pacific splashdown off the coast of San Diego at around 8:07 PM EDT.

NASA says a U.S. Navy helicopter will track the Orion capsule as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, with boats set to recover the crew once they’re down.

The mission already made history with its closest flyby of the Moon -- marking the first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years.

Anthony Anderson is sounding off on the Artemis II flight ... and yeah ... he’s not exactly over the moon about it!

We caught him at LAX Tuesday, and he kept it real ... saying it makes zero sense to spend all that cash sending four people around the moon when there's a laundry list of problems right here on Earth that need funding.

Check the clip -- Anthony’s fired up, rattling off everything from homelessness to underfunded programs, basically asking why space is getting the spotlight while real-life issues still struggle to get met.

Sad news for the UFO community ... Nick Pope -- known as the real-life version of "The X-Files" character Fox Mulder -- has died after battling cancer.

His wife, Elizabeth Weiss, confirmed her husband had passed in their Tucson, AZ home on Monday, posting on X ... "My heart is breaking."

She mentioned Nick had still been doing interviews in the final weeks of his life "even as he suffered," and reflected that she was "so lucky" to have been married to him, adding ... "He was a wonderful husband. I loved him dearly."

NASA’s Artemis II is about to reach a huge milestone -- the crew’s closest pass to the moon -- and you can watch it all go down live here.

Four astronauts -- Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Commander Reid Wiseman -- are making history, heading to the moon for the first lunar mission in more than 50 years ... and this flyby is the closest they’ll get.

It’s a major flex for space travel too -- they’re going farther than any humans ever have, beating the record set by Apollo 12. Their Orion spacecraft is now deep in the moon’s orbit following Wednesday's lift-off, officially feeling more pull from the moon than the Earth.

NASA doesn't have the whole world on a string ... but they've got it all in a pic, which the astronauts on Artemis II snapped.

The new pics capture our home in all its blue and brown glory from the window of the space capsule ... with the sun's glow hitting the side of the planet.

NASA says the snaps capture everyone on the planet looking back up at the Artemis II astronauts and cheering the mission on ... despite the s****y start it got off to.

Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch has a new name to add to her resume -- "space plumber" -- now that she successfully fixed the toilet issue on the NASA rocket en route to the moon.

Koch gave viewers the rundown after the Orion spacecraft's porcelain throne -- called the Universal Waste Management System -- stopped working just hours after launch on Thursday. Luckily, Koch noted it was a minor issue that had to do with the toilet sitting for too long. It just needed to warm up before the crew could warm its seat!

We told you all about the bathroom turbulence -- the potty troubles forced the astronauts to hold number 1 or use a backup system until the issue was fixed, which took several hours to do.

Drop everything you're doing, this is the best thing you'll see all day! A TikTok user shared the most amazing point of view of the Artemis II launch from her Delta flight ... and you're gonna wanna check it out.

It's so cool ... from a mile high in the air, you can see the Orion spacecraft rocketing out of Earth's atmosphere on the way to the freaking moon.

The flyby mission to circle the moon and come back is maybe the most ambitious of the past 5 decades, and it's already hit its first minor hiccup.

Forget peanuts and Cracker Jack … this ballgame came with a rocket launch that completely stole the show.

Fans packed into an in-state softball game between Florida and Stetson on Wednesday evening suddenly ditched the diamond and looked skyward … as Artemis II blasted off from Kennedy Space Center, just about an hour away.

The game actually paused as thousands of spectators pulled out their phones, capturing the surreal moment a rocket carrying four astronauts lit up the night sky on its 10-day trip around the moon.

For a few minutes, nobody cared about the score.

The astronauts on the Artemis II mission experienced some potty troubles just hours after takeoff Wednesday ... forcing them to hold number 1 or use a backup system until the issue was fixed.

Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch -- the only woman onboard the 10-day mission -- first reported the issue to mission control when she noticed a blinking fault light, per Space.com. Norm Knight, NASA's director of flight operations, told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center the malfunction was due to a controller issue on the toilet.

Meanwhile, NASA spokesperson Gary Jordan said during live mission commentary that the toilet fan was jammed.

In perhaps the most ambitious space mission of the last 5 decades, NASA is sending 4 astronauts around the moon and back ... the historic launch blasted off from Florida and the astronauts are now in space.

So far, everything appears to be going smoothly ... Artemis II lifted off Wednesday afternoon from Cape Canaveral and the astronauts are now in their capsule in high Earth orbit.

The lunar flyby mission -- named Artemis II -- is a test flight, acting as just one more step towards the future goal of not just visiting the moon, but staying there.

NASA is planning to focus on designing a moon base where astronauts can spend weeks or months at a time carrying out research and technology development.

That's just a little too close for comfort ...

People in Northeast Ohio were in for quite a shock on Tuesday when they heard -- and some say even felt -- a loud explosion around 9 AM.

NASA has confirmed the big boom was the sound of a meteor entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Barack Obama sent the internet into a frenzy after saying aliens are real during a recent podcast appearance ... but now the former prez is walking it back, saying he's never seen any evidence of extraterrestrials while in office.

ICYMI ... 44 sat down with Bryan Tyler Cohen, who asked him point blank whether aliens are real. Obama replied, "They’re real, but I haven’t seen them," before joking they're not being kept at Area 51 -- adding there's no underground facility ... unless there was some "enormous conspiracy" being kept from him.

Obama's comments spread like wildfire ... leading to him issuing a follow-up statement softening any definitive claim. He explains, "I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention, let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there."

Suni Williams won't be heading into orbit with NASA anytime soon ... because the astronaut just announced her retirement from the agency.

The news about Williams' retirement was posted on NASA's website Wednesday ... she officially retired December 27, 2025.

In a statement, Williams credited "all the wonderful love and support I’ve received from my colleagues."

Williams joined NASA in 1998, and she went on three missions to the International Space Station.

She was stuck on the ISS for an unprecedented 9 months after heading out on a planned one-week mission in 2024, owing to concerns over the safety of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore made it home in March 2025 after spending 286 days on the ISS.