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What does an eclipse look like from the moon? Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander just sent back a stunning image from the lunar surface.
The commercial space company’s lander, which touched down on the moon without a hitch on March 2 as part of a mission for NASA, took a high-definition image of the eclipse from its top deck in the early hours of Friday — and it’s mighty beautiful.
“Blue Ghost got her first diamond ring! Captured at our landing site in the Moon’s Mare Crisium around 3:30 am CDT, the photo shows the sun about to emerge from totality behind Earth,” Firefly Aerospace wrote online. (A “diamond ring” effect happens during a total solar eclipse when the sun just begins to appear from behind Earth; it also happens just before Earth totally blocks the sun.)
From our perch on Earth, it was a total lunar eclipse, and from the moon it was a total solar eclipse. These unique events happen when the sun, Earth, and moon align, allowing Earth to cast a shadow on the moon and block most sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. But our planet’s atmosphere still allows red wavelengths of light to squeeze through and travel through space, illuminating the moon in reddish, rusty, orangish, or crimson colors.
According to the company, it’s “the first time in history a commercial company will be actively operating on the Moon and able to observe a total solar eclipse where the Earth blocks the sun and casts a shadow on the lunar surface.”
Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched on Jan. 15 and landed on the moon on March 2 after a 45-day trip — and the photos Blue Ghost has been sending back are breathtaking. In the above photo, you can also see the Blue Ghost lander’s NASA equipment, including a Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager, Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder mast, and X-band antenna.
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