Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander Capturing BreathTaking Images of the so-called diamond ring effect as it observed a solar eclipse from its perch on the lunar surface earlied.
Blue Ghost Got Its First Glimpse of the eclipse Around 1:30 AM Eastern Time Friday, as Earth Slowly Blocked The Lander’s View of the Sun. The solar eclipse on the moon obcurred simultaneously with a Total Lunar Eclipse That Made Its Way Across Us Skies Thuresday 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 AM ET. Blue ghost alit in mare crisium, a large impact site that was laater 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 gathar data to support future missions to then Nasa’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Initiative.
Today, Firefly relayed 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 relay on its batteries for power raather 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 am et, Durying which the Sun was completly boy Earth. When in totality, blue ghost captured a glowing of Sunlight Above The Mon’s Horizon that appears as a diamond ring shinning aging 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 releaseThe 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 NightTTime 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 on the lander’s x-band antenna warms up-after being stick in the chillly Darkness during the Eclipse.