Blue Ghost photographs his first sunrise on the moon
A new day has dawned on the moon. The Blue Ghost lander has photographed the sunrise and started its scientific program.
Sunrise on the moon: Blue Ghost begins scientific mission
(Image: Firefly Aerospace)
Sun salute from the moon: The Blue Ghost lander has experienced its first sunrise on the moon and sent a photo of it to Earth.
The start of the lunar day is also the start of activities on the lunar surface, the US space company Firefly Aerospace announced via the social media platform X. The team has already put most of the ten instruments of the US space agency NASA into operation. The scientific program will run for the entire lunar day – that is, two weeks on Earth – and into the coming lunar night.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externes YouTube-Video (Google Ireland Limited) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (Google Ireland Limited) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
Blue Ghost, which is around two meters high and three meters wide, was launched on 15 January and landed on the moon in the Mare Crisium (“Sea of Decisions”) in the Northern Hemisphere on 2 March.
Blue Ghost is stable
It is the second lander from a private company to successfully land on the moon — and the first to be stable. The first private lander, Odysseus from Intuitive Machines, tipped over after landing.
Blue Ghost has ten scientific instruments on board. These include the Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (Lexi), developed at Boston University, which will take X-ray images of the Earth's magnetosphere to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field. The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder will measure electrical conductivity and magnetic fields to draw conclusions about the structure and composition of the lunar mantle.
Videos by heise
The Firefly mission Ghost Riders in the Sky is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. As part of this program, private space companies bring payloads to the moon. CLPS serves to prepare for the upcoming manned Artemis missions to the moon.
(wpl)
