The Morning: The far side
Plus, the Mideast war in maps.
The Morning
April 7, 2026

Good morning. We’ll start today behind the moon, farther from Earth than anyone’s ever been.

The far side

The moon, partially covered in shadow.
NASA

At 6:44 p.m. Eastern, the crew of NASA’s moon mission Artemis II was cut off from the rest of humanity as the spaceship slipped behind the moon.

For about 40 minutes, no one on Earth could know exactly what the four astronauts were doing. During their interlude in silence, they ventured farther from our planet than anyone who has ever lived. When the spacecraft emerged on the other side, the crew watched as a thin crescent of sunlit Earth rose above the lunar surface.

Three of the Artemis II astronauts giving a thumbs-up sign. The American and Canadian flags are hung behind them.
NASA

Since launching to space on Wednesday, the astronauts of Artemis II have relayed observations back to scientists on Earth. They have tangled with the vehicle’s toilet and taken dazzling photos of space. Before their loop around the moon, they also radioed Houston with a request. They asked to name a previously undesignated crater in memory of the wife of Reid Wiseman, the mission’s commander. She died of cancer in 2020.

“It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll,” said Jeremy Hansen, the mission specialist, his voice breaking up. The astronauts embraced and wiped their eyes. For a moment, mission control went silent.

TODAY’S NUMBER

252,756

— That’s how many miles the Artemis II astronauts were from Earth last night. It’s a big number. Our writer Evan Gorelick offers a few points of comparison.

  • Wiener dogs: If you took 22-inch dachshunds and laid them nose to tail, you’d need a very cooperative pack of almost 728 million dogs to cover the distance. It would be tough: There are only around 900 million dogs, of any breed, in existence.
  • Walking a dog: If you took one of the dachshunds on a brisk 3-mile-per-hour walk, you’d need to walk for more than 84,000 hours to get there. That translates to nearly 10 years of continuous walking. (If the dog let out a celebratory bark upon arrival, and if sound could travel through space, it would reach Earth around 14 days later.)
  • Eating hot dogs: You’d need a chain of 2.37 billion Nathan’s Famous hot dogs to cover the distance. If the competitive eater Joey Chestnut shoveled them down at his record-breaking pace of 76 dogs every 10 minutes, he’d need to eat nonstop for almost 594 years to devour the entire chain. (His monstrous meal would top 700 billion calories.)

WAR IN IRAN

Smoke rising in a hazy sky over many buildings.
In Tehran last week. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In perspective

One of the most difficult things to understand about a faraway conflict is its scale — its size relative to our own lived experience. The graphic designer Massimo Vignelli had a line about that. He said that dimensions are physical, but scale is mental. I always took that to mean that scale exists in the imagination, a frame of mind that tells us more than a list of measurements or a roster of numbers.

Take the war in the Middle East. My colleague Martín González Gómez, a graphics editor, wanted to understand its scale. To show it, he took maps of the conflict and laid them over maps of other parts of the world.

The size of the theater

A map shows, in light orange, the countries involved in the Iran war. It is superimposed on a map of the United States, obscuring much of the nation. Orange dots symbolize targets hit in the war.
Source: ACLED. Martín González Gómez/The New York Times

The total land area of the countries shooting at each other would cover much of the continental United States. In the overlay, you can see that strikes have happened over what amounts to the distance between Florida and Oregon.

Iran vs. Ukraine

A map of Iran, in light orange, is superimposed on a map of Europe. A red swath indicates the areas in Ukraine currently controlled by Russia.
Source: Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project. Martín González Gómez/The New York Times

Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, and each side has fought bitterly over narrow tracts of land. Iran is significantly larger than Ukraine and has more than double its population.

The size of the strait

A map of the Strait of Hormuz is superimposed on a map of New York City and parts Long Island, New Jersey and New York Harbor.
Source: International Maritime Organization. Martín González Gómez/The New York Times

Martín laid a map of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s supply of oil used to run, over a map of New York City. The narrow shipping channels that Iran has under its control are each about the width of a Manhattan neighborhood.

These maps will help give you a sense of perspective.

Also: These satellite images explain how tiny islands in or near the Strait of Hormuz help Iran control the flow of ships through the vital corridor.

The latest on the war

In the U.S.

  • President Trump said yesterday that a new cease-fire proposal from Iran was “not good enough,” and repeated his threat to attack bridges and power plants if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern.
  • “Every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again,” he said at a press conference yesterday. He brushed off a Times reporter’s question about whether such strikes would violate the Geneva Conventions.
  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likened the rescue of an American airman to the Resurrection of Jesus.

In the Middle East

Around the World

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

President Trump sits at a table and holds a black marker in one hand. He is surrounded by a crowd of children.
Kenny Holston/The New York Times
  • At the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, cameras captured Trump telling a group of children about Biden’s use of an autopen. “He was incapable of signing his name,” Trump said, to which a child replied: “What?”
  • The Trump administration terminated civil rights settlements that aimed to ensure equal opportunities for transgender students.

Congress

Around the World

Three Ukrainian soldiers in camouflage clothing and helmets walk in a line among a glade of thick trees.
Ukrainian soldiers last year. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

OPINIONS

Do insurance companies prioritize profit over patient care? A plastic surgeon and a former CVS executive debate — and search for common ground — in our new series, “Divided.” Watch it here.

Settler violence in the West Bank is worsening. A new chorus of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel is demanding that the government put an end to it, Talia Sasson writes.

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MORNING READS

People mill about a plaza on a sunny day. An older building with a clock tower is in the background.
The Shanghai History Museum, housed in the former Shanghai Race Club. Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Shanghai dispatch: The city’s history as a place that welcomed foreign influence is visible in its historic buildings. Many of them are now under threat.

10-minute challenge: Spend some time with an image from an “I Spy” book and see what secrets emerge.

Bald is beautiful?: A new drug that prevents hair loss is changing how men see themselves.

Your pick: The most-clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about ICE’s detention of a soldier’s wife.

Metropolitan Diary: Park bench misunderstanding.

SPORTS

Elliot Cadeau, wearing a white college uniform, holds a basketball and pushes up against Braylon Mullins, who wears a blue uniform.
Bob Donnan/Imagn Images, via Reuters

Men’s college basketball: Michigan defeated UConn 69-63 to win the national championship, its first in 37 years.

W.N.B.A.: The Chicago Sky traded Angel Reese, a two-time All-Star, to the Atlanta Dream for first-round draft picks in 2027 and 2028.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Cubes of chicken in a red sauce in a metal pan with a spoon. Scallions are sprinkled on top.
Kerri Brewer for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Chicken Manchurian is South Asia’s rejoinder to food court Chinese chicken in America: a sticky, spicy-sweet Desi Chinese stir-fry dependent on the flavors of caramelized ketchup, chile and garlic. Zainab Shah’s recipe calls for cubed chicken breasts, but I prefer thighs for the flavor and juiciness. You may prefer cauliflower or tofu, both of which fry nicely and soak up the sauce well. Serve over rice with a lot of sliced scallions over the top.