Houston: Four astronauts traveling back to Earth from the far side of the moon on ‌NASA's Artemis II mission spoke of ​their emotions as they wrapped up the unprecedented flight and prepared to re-enter the atmosphere in a "fireball", during their first press conference from space on Wednesday. The Artemis II crew, flying in their Orion capsule since launching from Florida last week, are due to splash down off the Southern California coast on Friday evening after reaching the moon earlier this week. They cruised along a path that took them past the shadowed, lunar far side to become the farthest-flying humans in history.On the trip back home, they will reach speeds of up to 23,839 mph (38,365 kph) as they enter Earth's atmosphere, a high-risk phase of the mission that ⁠will put Orion's heatshield to the test as it gets battered by intense atmospheric friction."I've actually been thinking about entry since April 3, 2023 when we got assigned to this mission," said Artemis II mission pilot Victor Glover, when asked how he was feeling about the return."There's so many more pictures, so many more stories, and gosh, I haven't even begun to process what we've been through. We've still got two more days, and riding a fireball through the atmosphere is ‌profound as well."Lunar race to beat China missionGlover and fellow NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen are the first wave of astronauts in a multibillion-dollar series of missions under the Artemis program that aims to return humans to the moon's surface by 2028 before China, and establish a long-term U.S. presence over the next decade, building a moon base for ‌potential future missions to Mars. Koch cast the mission series as a relay race, telling reporters: "In fact, we have ‌batons that we bought to symbolize, physically, that.""We plan to hand them to the next crew, and every single thing that we do is with them ‌in mind," she said.That next mission, Artemis III, will involve ‌a docking test in low-Earth orbit between the Orion capsule and both astronaut lunar landers that NASA plans to use to put its astronauts on the moon in later missions.Artemis IV, targeted for 2028, would be the program's ​first crewed lunar landing, and the first ‌since Apollo 17 in 1972.Back on Earth, dozens of ​lunar scientists have been packed in rooms adjacent to NASA's Mission Control ⁠Center in Houston this week, scribbling down notes and debating a steady stream of both real-time and recorded audio from the Artemis II astronaut crew in their Orion spacecraft.Splashdown off San Diego The crew is due to return to Earth on Friday around 8 p.m. ET (0000 GMT Saturday), splashing down off the coast of San Diego, California to cap their nearly ​10-day mission.The four astronauts on Monday had ⁠reached a record-breaking distance from Earth of roughly ⁠252,000 miles, surpassing by some 4,000 miles the previous record held by the Apollo 13 crew for 56 years.Wiseman, Artemis II mission commander, told reporters the crew each had two "very brief" chats with their families during the mission."Hearing your crew mates giggling and crying, and just gasping and listening and loving their families from afar - familiy is so ⁠important to all four of us, and that has been amazing," he said.In a radio message to mission control in Houston on Monday, as the crew approached their closest distance to the lunar surface, Hansen suggested naming a fresh crater on the moon in honor of Wiseman's late wife, Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.Wiseman told reporters his crewmates approached him with that idea to name the crater Carroll while they were in quarantine before launching to space."That was an emotional moment for me," Wiseman said. "I said 'Absolutely, I would love that' ... but I can't give the speech. I can't give the talk."Tear-jerking momentIn the mission's ‌sixth day, Hansen choked up as he made the suggestion to mission control in what was a tear-jerking moment for many NASA staff in Houston.The astronauts broke their distance record during the lunar flyby in which ​they surveyed the moon's surface from roughly 4,000 miles above.Advances in lunar science have typically relied on lunar-orbiting satellites and Earth-based observations. But the crew's six-hour lunar flyby provided a real-time stream of scientific collections from human eyes, allowing rare back-and-forth discussions between teams on the ground and their fellow scientists over 252,000 miles away in deep space.Scientists see NASA's Artemis II mission as an important early step in unlocking mysteries about the solar system's formation. The moon, Artemis II mission specialist Koch said before launching ​to space last week, is a "witness plate" to the formation of ‌our solar system.

New Delhi: Voters in India's Assam and Kerala states and the federally administered region of Puducherry began casting ballots Thursday in local elections seen as a test of support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party.The elections pit the BJP and its regional allies against a range of opposition parties. Assam and Puducherry are governed by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, while Kerala is ruled by the opposition.Two other opposition-ruled states, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, will vote later this month. The results for all five regions are expected May 4.The polls come while the public is concerned about rising energy costs and tighter cooking gas supplies due to the war in the Middle East.The outcome could show whether Modi's party can extend its dominance by making inroads into opposition strongholds. A strong showing would also bolster his federal government, as the 2024 national election forced his ruling party to rely on regional allies to form the government.The elections are also crucial for opposition parties seeking to build a sustained challenge to the BJP's dominance across the country.In northeastern Assam, the BJP is seeking to retain power by emphasizing a hard line on immigration, a long-standing and contentious issue in the state bordering Bangladesh. The state's campaign featured sharp rhetoric from the ruling BJP, which cast the election around claims of illegal immigration by Bengali-speaking Muslims.Southern Kerala state presents a different challenge, where power has traditionally alternated between alliances led by the Indian National Congress and communist parties. Modi's party has struggled to gain ground in the state but has invested heavily to expand its presence.In Puducherry, a small federal territory, the BJP is relying on coalition with a regional party to strengthen its position.The most keenly watched and also the most contentious of the upcoming electoral contests is West Bengal, where the regional Trinamool Congress party has been in power for three consecutive terms. Modi's party has never governed West Bengal, and allegations of irregularities in the revision of electoral rolls have intensified political tensions.Opposition parties say the exercise by election officials called the Special Intensive Revision has rendered millions of citizens unable to vote, particularly minority Muslims. The Election Commission of India has denied the allegations, saying the exercise eliminated dead, duplicate and fake voters on the electoral roll.Similar exercises have been done in several states