Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander captured breathtaking images of the so-called diamond ring effect as it observed a solar eclipse from its perch on the lunar surface early this morning.
Blue Ghost got its first glimpse of the eclipse around 1:30 a.m. Eastern Time Friday, as Earth slowly blocked the lander’s view of the Sun. The solar eclipse on the Moon occurred simultaneously with a total lunar eclipse that made its way across U.S. skies Thursday night, turning the Moon a bloody red color from our terrestrial point of view.
Firefly’s lunar lander touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday, March 2 at 3:34 a.m. ET. Blue Ghost alit in Mare Crisium, a large impact site that was later filled with basaltic lava. The company’s first mission to the Moon, aptly named “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” is packed with 10 NASA instruments designed to probe the lunar surface and gather data to support future human missions to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Today, Firefly released the first two images taken by Blue Ghost during the solar eclipse. In this first image—seen directly above—a glowing ring of light is visible in the reflection of the lander’s solar panel as the Sun begins to hide behind Earth’s shadow. In order to capture images of the eclipse, Blue Ghost had to rely on its batteries for power rather than its solar panels.
The eclipse lasted for roughly five hours at Blue Ghost’s landing site in Mare Crisium, and included around two hours of totality that began at 2:18 a.m. ET, during which the Sun was completely blocked by Earth. When in totality, Blue Ghost captured a glowing ring of sunlight above the Moon’s horizon that appears as a diamond ring shinning against the dark backdrop of space—as seen at the top of this article.
In addition to imaging the solar eclipse, according to a Firefly release, the Blue Ghost team planned to operate NASA instruments to measure changes in the lunar environment as Earth blocks the Sun’s light. The lander is set to operate on the lunar surface through Sunday, March 16, capturing a lunar sunset and operating for several hours into nighttime on the Moon, according to Firefly. In doing so, Blue Ghost will have completed a full lunar day on the surface of the Moon, or the equivalent of roughly 14 days on Earth.
Firefly hopes to downlink more images from the solar eclipse once the lander’s X-band antenna warms up—after being stuck in the chilly darkness during the eclipse.
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