Astronauts who spent 10 days in space reveal 'weird' experience as they approached dark side of the Moon

Artemis II astronauts, who splashed down from their historic lunar mission last month, have opened up about what it felt like to travel further than any other humans in space.

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen were launched into space on April 1 and made their safe return to Earth nine days later in what was dubbed the 'perfect splashdown'.

As part of their mission, the crew traveled around the far side of the Moon, which is commonly referred to as the 'dark side'.

Despite its nickname, it isn’t actually dark and actually gets more sunlight than the side we do see. However, due to something called tidal locking, the same side of the Moon is always facing Earth, so we never get to see the other one.

Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Friday (May 1), the astronauts spoke about the moment they realised they were further into space than ever before.

The astronauts embarked upon a 10-day mission (NASA via Getty Images)

Hansen explained: "It actually happened earlier than we thought, we looked at the Moon and we thought 'oh that looks weird'. The angle we had we were now seeing parts of the far side from a distance, we all glued to the windows."

The astronauts also spoke about which moment was the most nerve-wracking, with Koch explaining that re-entry is much more unnerving than launch.

"Coming back to a planet is no joke... on re-entry you come back, you are a literal plasma ball and you see the fire outside every single window," she explained.

(NASA/UNILAD)

They spoke about what it was like to encounter the dark side of the Moon (NASA via Getty Images)

Glover, meanwhile, has previously reflected on the mission being shared with everyone back on Earth.

"I think something that we all feel, and we try to share is how much we want to reflect back to you all how we did this, not we as a crew, we as countries and as humans did this," he said, as per BBC News.

Glover went on to say that during the mission, he and his fellow astronauts reflected on 'how beautiful Earth is'.

(UNILAD/NASA)

Elsewhere, Hansen said his faith in people has been deepened since flying to the Moon.

"We don't always do great things. We're not always in our integrity, but our default is to be good and to be good to one another," he said, adding: "What I've seen has brought me more joy, but more hope for our future."