A private lunar landing module has captured the first images in high definition of sun in the Moon.
Firefly Aerospace and the POT They published the impressive photographs on Tuesday, taken before the Blue Ghost module was silent during the weekend. In one of the images it was seen Venus in the distance.
The Blue Ghost of Firefly Alunizó on March 2, becoming the first private spacecraft to land vertically and performs its entire mission in the satellite. He continued taking photos and collecting scientific data up to five hours after the start of the lunar night, before going out due to lack of solar energy.
Joel Kearns, from NASA, commented that The Blue Ghost sunset series are the first images of this type in high resolution. Scientists will have to analyze them in depth, he said, before making any statement about the glow on the horizon captured in at least one of the images, and if it was created by suspension dust. That theory was raised more than half a century ago by Gene Cernan, from Apollo 17, the last astronaut who walked on the moon.
“What we have is a really beautiful and aesthetic image that shows some really unusual features”Kearns said at a press conference.
The Blue Ghost brought ten experiments for NASA under the commercial lunar transport program of the space agency. Although according to the officials all the objectives were met, the drill on board could only penetrate one meter (three feet) on the lunar surface, instead of the three meters (10 feet) planned.
Firefly indicated that it will try to activate the lunar module in early April, after the lunar night of two weeks of intense cold, although Engineers are skeptical that it can work again.