Astronauts’ emotional naming of a Moon crater is a perfect reminder of the humanity behind the mission |
Artemis II began its mission to orbit the Moon on April 1. The four-person crew—Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen—has captured global attention, documenting their 10-day journey around the Moon for Earthlings back home.
Even hundreds of thousands of miles away, the crew has brought humanity to outer space. Glover delivered a moving Easter message that touched people around the world.
The crew also rallied behind Commander Wiseman in an act of kindness that brought them to tears. Wiseman, a father of two daughters, honored his late wife, Carroll, by naming a lunar crater after her.
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Artemis II crew names craters
In an emotional video shared by NASA, Hansen is surrounded by his fellow astronauts as he explains that the mission has revealed “relatively fresh craters on the Moon” that have yet to be named. He adds that there are two craters the crew would like to name.
For the first crater, Hansen says, “If you were to look at Orientale on the far side and then draw a line straight up to Ohm on the far side, relatively in the middle is an unnamed crater and we would like to suggest it be called Integrity in the future.”
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But it’s the second crater that holds special significance. Hansen adds that “at certain times of the Moon’s transit around Earth, we will be able to see this from Earth.”
He continues, his voice breaking as he is overcome with emotion: “We lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katey and Ellie…[The crater is] a bright spot on the Moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.”
Hansen spells it out for mission control, with Wiseman seated beside him. Wiseman is visibly emotional, wiping away tears. He reaches out to touch Hansen’s shoulder. Koch also wipes away tears, and the entire crew then embraces in a group hug.
The heartwarming moment and expression of love touched many viewers, who shared their reactions in the video’s comment section:
“Sounds like Carroll was loved to the Moon and back, literally 😭.”
“The farthest from Earth humans have ever cried, grieved, and held each other. It was a privilege to witness from afar. I cried with them.”
“These are the moments from this mission people will remember forever. We will all remember Carroll now when we look up at the Moon.”
“So, we were all crying, right? 😭😭😭😭”
“In the last five days, I have heard more messages about love from these astronauts than I could have imagined. They are currently the four best humans on the planet, but off the planet!”
“This part made me tear up, beautiful crew, the best of us got sent up there ❤️🥲”
Who was Carroll Wiseman?
According to Wiseman’s official NASA biography, Carroll “dedicated her life to helping others as a newborn intensive care unit Registered Nurse.”
She passed away on May 17, 2020, after a five-year battle with cancer, according to her obituary. Carroll was born in Virginia Beach, and had two sisters and a brother. She attended James Madison University and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Wiseman told Baltimore Magazine in January 2026 that his wife encouraged the family to stay in Houston and supported his role as an astronaut.
“When my wife started getting sick, I wanted to move towards family. But she said, ‘No, this is where you work and you love your job. And we should not give that up for this,’” he shared. “Also, I want my kids to know that you can still achieve and go on and pick yourself up. I think when I said, ‘This is something that I want to go do, it’s important to me, and I think I can do a good job at this,’ they were aligned very quickly.”
Music, community and joy drive real change
In a small village in Pwani, a district on Tanzania’s coast, a massive dance party is coming to a close. For the past two hours, locals have paraded through the village streets, singing and beating ngombe drums; now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheilla motions for everyone to sit facing a large projector screen. A film premiere is about to begin.
It’s an unusual way to kick off a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage, and other barriers that prevent girls from accessing education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pura are finding creative, culturally relevant ways like this one to capture people’s interest.
The film ends and Sheilla, the Communications and Partnership Lead for Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands in front of the crowd once again, asking the audience to reflect: What did you think about the film? How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn?
Sheilla explains that, once the community sees the film, “It brings out conversations within themselves, reflective conversations.” The resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.
Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This and other barriers — including child marriage, poverty, conflict, and discrimination — prevent girls from completing their education around the world.
Sheilla and her team are using film and radio programs to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA’s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for everyone, and to ensure that every member of a community understands how girls’ education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally for their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends.
Sheilla’s story is one of many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful, joyful twist. Here’s how Pura is using scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.
A partnership focused on local impact, on a global mission
Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. In order to defend every girl’s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where the educational barriers are the greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that those who are closest to the problems are best equipped to solve and build durable solutions, like MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about their education.
But local initiatives can thrive and scale more powerfully with global support, which is why Pura is using their own superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world with the women and girls in these local communities.
The Pura x Malala Fund Collection incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil: countries where Malala Fund operates to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection will be donated to Malala Fund directly, but beyond financial support, the Collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes like lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to transport people, ignite their senses, and help them draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls’ education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy, and tenacity of girls and local leaders, all while uniting in a shared commitment to education: the belief that supporting girls’ rights in one community benefits all of us, everywhere.
You’ve already met Sheilla. Now see how Naiara and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to ensure every girl can learn freely and dare to dream.
Naiara Leite is reimagining what’s possible in Brazil
In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the Northeastern Coast, girls like ten-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Too often, racial discrimination contributes to high dropout rates among Black, quilombola and Indigenous girls in the country.
“In the logic of Brazilian society, Black people don’t need to study,” says Naiara Leite, Executive Coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and Malala Fund partner. Bahia, the state where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-receiving territories in the Americas, and because of that history, deeply-ingrained, anti-Black prejudice is still widespread. “Our role and the image constructed around us is one of manual labor,” Naiara says.
But education can change that. In 2020, with assistance from a Malala Fund grant, Odara launched its first initiative for improving school completion rates among Black, quilombola, and Indigenous girls: “Ayomidê Odara”. The young girls mentored under the program, including Julia, are known as the Ayomidês. And like the Pura x Malala Fund Collection’s Brazil: Breath of Courage scent, the Ayomidês are fierce, determined, and bursting with energy.
Ayomidês take part in weekly educational sessions where they explore subjects like education and ethnic-racial relations. The girls are encouraged to find their own voices by producing Instagram lives, social media videos, and by participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomidês are rewriting the narrative on what’s possible for Afro-Brazilian girls to achieve. One of the earliest Ayomidês, a young woman named Debora, is now a communications intern. Another former Ayomidê, Francine, works at UNICEF, helping train the next generation of adolescent leaders. And Julia has already set her sights on becoming a math teacher or a model.
“These are generations of Black women who did not have access to a school,” Naiara says. “These are generations of Black women robbed daily of their dreams. And we’re telling them that they could be the generation in their family to write a new story.”
Mama Habiba is reframing the conversation in Nigeria
In Mama Habiba’s home country of Nigeria, the scents of starfruit, ylang ylang and pineapple, all incorporated into the Pura x Malala Collection’s “Nigeria: Hope for Tomorrow,” can be found throughout the vibrant markets. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says that the Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their potential fully blooms.
“Some of these schools are very far, and there is an issue of quality, too,” Mama Habiba says. “Most parents find out when their children are in school, the girls are not learning. So why allow them to continue?”
When girls drop out of secondary school, marriage is often the alternative. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. When this happens, girls are unable to fulfill their potential, and their families and communities lose out on the social, health and economic benefits.
Completing secondary school delays marriage, and according to UNESCO, educated girls become women who raise healthier children, lift their........