Humanity on Monday traveled the farthest ever into space when Artemis II broke the record set more than 50 years ago by Apollo 13.

Artemis II’s four astronauts zoomed past Apollo 13’s 248,655-mile mark around 1:56 p.m. ET, reaching 248,656 miles as their aircraft hurtled past the moon at nearly 2,000 mph.

Then hours later, shortly after 7 p.m.., the crew set a new record for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth, at a staggering 252,756 miles. The astronauts then beginning their long journey back to Earth .

The extraordinary record-breaker occurred nearly 56 years ago to the day that Apollo 13 set it April 14, 1970, as the troubled spacecraft used the moon’s gravity to slingshot itself back to Earth without using any of its waning power after suffering an onboard explosion.

Artemis II was heading on its way home after arcing around the back of the moon on its ride back to Earth, where it is expected to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean around 8 p.m. Friday.

The distance record was set just minutes after the capsule made its closest approach to the moon around 4,067 miles in altitude.

It also came in the thick of Artemis II’s communications blackout, which was expected to last about 40 minutes while the moon blocked any signals between Orion and the Earth.

Communications resumed around 7:25 p.m.

The crew was also busy during that time making observations of the moon during their historic lunar flyby — which will revealed swaths of the moon’s far side never before seen by human eyes.

While the far side has been partially seen by human eyes in the past — beginning on Apollo 8 in 1968 — much of it remained hidden in shadow throughout the Apollo program.

Those crews orbited the moon for days at a time and passed over the far side, but the missions were timed so that sun was shining on the near-side landing sites — which left the far side largely obscured as the capsules passed over it.

Artemis II saw the entirety of the far side during its flyby, with the moon appearing about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length out the cabin windows.

The flyby began around 2:45 p.m. and was scheduled to last until about 9:20 p.m.

Those hours were spent putting the crew’s training to the test — they dimmed the cabin lights, and worked in shifts observing the moon from the windows while extensively detailing everything they saw.

They described hues of greens and browns showing up from the lunar soil, as well as patches of white inside craters they said were brighter than snow on Earth.

Those white patches were even compared to shining pinpricks in a lampshade by astronaut Christina Koch, while the crater-battered terrain was described as “impossibly rugged” and “alien.”

Artemis II will spend the next four days flying back to Earth.

The mission was able to break Apollo 13’s record by using the same trick of orbital mechanics to get back home: after whizzing around the moon on Monday, the capsule will use the lunar gravity and its momentum to fling itself home without needing to fire its thrusters beyond small trajectory corrections.

The capsule will leave the moon’s gravitational sphere of influence on Tuesday afternoon, and will be pulled home by Earth’s gravity from there.

Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean is expected off San Francisco at 8:07 p.m. Friday, if everything goes according to plan between now and then.

And then the race will be on to walk on the moon once again — Artemis III is scheduled to test out rendezvous procedures with the new lunar lander from Earth orbit in 2027, and Artemis IV is expected to put people on the moon again by 2028.

It would be the first time in 56 years man has walked on the moon since Apollo 17 astronauts Jack Schmitt and then Gene Cernan left the surface in 1972.