[Image: Friends of NASA/ Facebook]
The Blue Ghost lunar lander has been sharing dazzling visuals of our moon since it successfully entered our rocky neighbour’s orbit on February 13.
The new footage features a close-up of the moon’s far side, an area that is not visible from Earth, taken after the lander transitioned from a high elliptical orbit to a lower elliptical orbit – about 120 kilometres above the surface.
Texas-based Firefly Aerospace sent its private spacecraft into Earth’s orbit on February 8 before beginning its epic 384,400-kilometre journey to reach the moon.
Now that it has arrived, Blue Ghost is about halfway through its 16-day orbit of the moon and will attempt a descent to the lunar surface on March 2.
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Blue Ghost is expected to land on the far eastern edge of the moon’s near side by Mons Latreille, an ancient volcanic feature in a 483-kilometre basin called Mare Crisium, or “Sea of Crises.”
In addition to the science, Blue Ghost will also capture a solar eclipse on March 14 when the Earth will block the sun from the Moon’s surface and cast Blue Ghost into a shadow for about five hours.
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The lander carries 10 NASA science and technology instruments aboard as part of the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative. CLPS is part of NASA’s broader Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
Blue Ghost also hopes to study the ‘dust levitation phenomenon’ (when lunar dust appears to ‘levitate’ above the surface) that was first sketched by the last Apollo astronaut on the Moon.
The lander will perform its duty for one lunar day (about 14 Earth days) before lunar nighttime falls and the darkness and cold temperatures end the spacecraft’s ability to function. And there it will most likely sit in silence for several billion years, or until the alien moonbase comes scavenging for parts.
[Source: CNN]
