18 March 2025, 22:39
A private lunar lander has captured the first high-definition sunset pictures from the Moon.
A private lunar lander has captured the first high-definition sunset pictures from the Moon. Picture: Alamy
By Josef Al Shemary
A private lunar lander has captured the first high-definition sunset pictures from the Moon.
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Firefly Aerospace and Nasa released the photos on Tuesday, taken before the Blue Ghost lander fell silent over the weekend.
One of the pictures is a close-up taken from near the moon's surface, showing the setting sun on the moon's horizon.
Another picture shows a view of planet Earth from the distance, and yet another included Venus in the distance.
This image provided by NASA/Firefly Aerospace, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, shows the sun setting on the moon, with Earth and Venus in the distance.
This image provided by NASA/Firefly Aerospace, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, shows the sun setting on the moon, with Earth and Venus in the distance. Picture: Alamy
Firefly's Blue Ghost landed on the moon on March 2, the first private spacecraft to touch down upright and perform its entire mission.
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It kept taking pictures and collecting science data five hours into the lunar night before it died for lack of solar energy.
This image shows Earth captured by Blue Ghost shortly after landing from the lunar surface.
This image shows Earth captured by Blue Ghost shortly after landing from the lunar surface. Picture: Alamy
Joel Kearns of Nasa said Blue Ghost's series of sunset shots are the first high-resolution images from Earth's neighbour.
Scientists will need to analyse them in depth, he noted, before making any determination about the horizon glow captured in at least one of the photos and whether it was created by levitating dust.
That theory was put forth more than a half-century ago by Apollo 17's Gene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the Moon.
This image shows the sun about to emerge from totality behind Earth.
This image shows the sun about to emerge from totality behind Earth. Picture: Alamy
"What we've got is a really beautiful, aesthetic image showing some really unusual features," Mr Kearns said at a news conference.
Blue Ghost carried 10 experiments for Nasa under the space agency's commercial lunar delivery programme.
While all objectives were met, officials said, the on-board drill could only penetrate 3ft into the Moon versus the 10ft that had been planned.
Firefly said it will try to activate the lunar in early April after the two-week, bitter cold lunar night, although engineers are doubtful it will crank back up.
In other space-related news, Two astronauts stuck in space for nearly nine months have finally splashed down to Earth in a SpaceX capsule.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the International Space Station on June 5, and were only supposed to be in orbit for eight days.
Instead, following a slew of setbacks, a simple test of Boeing's Starliner, turned into a months-long mission to rescue them.
The two astronauts have now splashed down off the coast of Florida in the capsule, and will soon be reunited with their loved ones.