NASA has released the first ever high-definition photographs of a sunset on the moon to mark the completion of the Blue Ghost lunar lander’s maiden mission to our rocky satellite.
The image shows a ghostly glow above the cratered lunar horizon.
“These are the first high-definition images taken of the sun going down and then going into darkness at the horizon,” Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration at NASA, said in a news briefing on Tuesday (March 18).
The lunar lander, built and operated in collaboration with commercial space exploration company Firefly Aerospace, touched down on the moon on March 2. Its mission lasted for 14 days — the equivalent of one lunar day — until its shutdown on Sunday (March 16). Like most lunar landers, Blue Ghost was not built to withstand lunar night — the frigid, roughly two-week-long period when most of the moon’s visible surface is in shadow, with temperatures dropping as low as minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit.
As well as capturing stunning photos, the lander collected extensive data on how space weather and other cosmic forces may impact our planet. “Teams are eagerly analyzing their data, and we are extremely excited for the expected scientific findings that will be gained from this mission,” Kearns said in a statement on Tuesday (March 18).
The Blue Ghost lunar lander launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 15 as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The lander delivered 10 scientific and technological instruments to the Mare Crisium basin on the near side of the moon, which NASA said is the largest payload a CLPS delivery mission has ever carried.
These instruments include the deepest robotic planetary subsurface thermal probe ever made, according to NASA, an x-ray imager to study the interactions between solar winds and Earth’s magnetic field, and a subsurface probe based on electric and magnetic fields capable of taking measurements at depths of up to 700 miles (110 kilometers).
“The science and technology we send to the Moon now helps prepare the way for future NASA exploration and long-term human presence to inspire the world for generations to come,” Nicky Fox, an associate administrator at NASA, said in a statement.
Blue Ghost captured thousands of other images during its brief mission, including a lunar sunrise and a solar eclipse by Earth during last week’s “blood moon” lunar eclipse.
