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Blue Ghost caught her first look at the solar eclipse from the Moon around 12:30 am CDT on March 14
What does a total lunar eclipse look like from the moon? We finally know after Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft sent back some unique photos taken during last night’s total lunar eclipse.
While surrounded by the reddish light of a “blood moon” during a 65-minute totality, the 6.6x11.5 feet spacecraft snapped a spectacular first-ever image of a total solar eclipse — a total eclipse of the sun by Earth — as a glowing red ring of sunlight.
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Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander captured a first look at the solar eclipse as it began to emerge from
The actual straight-on image of Earth eclipsing the sun, above, isn’t initially clear, but look in the reflection on Blue Ghost. “Notice the glowing ring of light emerge in the reflection of our solar panel as Earth began to block the sun,” states Firefly’s latest blog post. “We hope to downlink more imagery soon once our X-band antenna warms up from the cold temperatures faced in the darkness of totality.” Images will be added to this post when they become available.
Blue Ghost captured the solar eclipse from the moon around 12:30 a.m. CDT on Friday, March 14, 2025, proving beyond doubt that a total lunar eclipse, as seen from the moon, is a very different event from how it looks from Earth.
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Shortly after landing, Blue Ghost captured the Earth from the lunar surface with a wide-lens cameras
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Halo Of Light Around Earth
From Earth, during a total lunar eclipse, the full moon passes through Earth's dark umbral shadow in space, turning reddish for a short period of totality. On March 13-14, that totality lasted for 65 minutes. From the moon, a total lunar eclipse sees Earth move in front of the sun to block its light, causing a total solar eclipse.
However, it doesn't get dark, as it does during a total solar eclipse seen from Earth. The only light that can reach the moon while it's in Earth's shadow — which blocks direct sunlight from reaching it — is first being filtered and scattered by Earth's atmosphere.
Not The First Eclipse From The Moon
It’s not the first time a spacecraft has imaged a total lunar eclipse from the moon. On April 24, 1967, NASA’s Surveyor III took some very basic images of the event. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kaguya spacecraft also took a timelapse sequence of the event in 2009, including the “diamond ring” moment so familiar to eclipse chasers on Earth.
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irefly’s Blue Ghost lander captured its first sunrise on the Moon, marking the beginning of the
Blue Ghost’s Lunar Sunrise
This Raleigh scattering sees blue and violet short-wavelength light strike atoms in Earth's atmosphere and scatter while long-wavelength red and orange light bends onto the lunar surface. It's essentially projecting thousands of sunrises and sunsets onto the lunar surface. During a total solar eclipse, the new moon drifts between Earth and the sun, casting its shadow onto Earth.
Blue Ghost made only the second-ever commercial landing on the Moon on March 2, at the foot of the Mons Latreille mountain in the Sea of Crises, just northeast of the Sea of Tranquility, where NASA’s Apollo 11 mission landed in 1969. It quickly took an image of a lunar sunrise and has been operating on solar power ever since.
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Blue Ghost Mission 1 - Shadow on the Moon's SurfaceFirefly Aerospace
Blue Ghost’s Shadow Selfie
A day on the moon lasts for an entire orbit of the Earth — 29 days — with daylight and night each lasting for 14.5 days. Blue Ghost is, therefore, operating for one entire period of lunar daylight, which is what most lunar missions do due to the need for solar power. As night descends on Blue Ghost — which it will do on Sunday, March 16 — its mission will come to an end. However, before it deactivates, it will attempt to take one more historic sequence — a lunar sunset in high-definition video. Expect that to come on Monday.
On Sept. 7-8, 2025, the year's second total lunar eclipse will take place, with the event seen most easily by observers in Asia and Australia.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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