Space photo of the week: The last sight you see before dying on the moon

Features
By published

The final act of the Blue Ghost lander's busy two weeks on the moon was to send back sunset shots featuring Earth and Venus.

A photo of the sun setting from the Moon
Sunset with Earth and Venus on the horizon, as seen by Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost spacecraft on the moon. (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)

What it is: Sunset on the moon, part of the first collection of high-definition imagery of a lunar sunset

Where it is: Mons Latreille, a mountain in the moon's Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") basin

Why it's so special: This week, a spacecraft on the moon took a unique sequence of images of a lunar sunset. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander snapped these gorgeous high-definition photos from its position at the foot of Mons Latreille, a mountain in the "Sea of Crises" basin, close to the "Sea of Tranquility," where the Apollo 11 mission landed in 1969.

Taken from different cameras and stitched together, the footage shows the horizon glowing as the sun sets, with Earth and Venus on display. (Venus is the glowing dot to the upper right of the sun, and Earth is the large, bright object at the upper left.)

Related: 'Blood moon' total lunar eclipse: Stunning photos of our celestial neighbor turning red over the Americas

A photo of the sun setting from the Moon

Another image from Blue Ghost shows darkness falling over the moon as Earth and Venus look on. (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)

Sunsets are much rarer on the moon than they are on Earth. Because the moon is tidally locked with Earth, one day on the moon — sunrise to sunset — lasts 14.5 Earth days. That's half the time it takes for the moon to orbit Earth.

That explains why Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost mission, which launched Jan. 15, could sustain itself using solar panels for just over two weeks. After landing on March 2, it operated on solar power until transitioning to battery power on March 16. It finally "went dark" at 7:15 pm EDT that day, five hours after sending back its landmark images. In total, it operated during 346 hours of daylight on the moon, according to Firefly Aerospace.

As it went dark, Blue Ghost's mission came full circle, having begun with an image of a lunar sunrise on March 3. On March 14, the spacecraft took an iconic image of a "blood moon" total lunar eclipse as seen from Earth. From Blue Ghost's perspective on the moon, it saw a total solar eclipse — complete with a "diamond ring" effect — from a red lunar surface.

Blue Ghost Mission 1, nicknamed "Ghost Riders in the Sky," was a groundbreaking mission in lots of ways.

"Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 marks the longest surface duration commercial mission on the moon to date, collecting extraordinary science data that will benefit humanity for decades to come," Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

For more sublime space images, check out our Space Photo of the Week archives.

Jamie Carter
Jamie Carter
Live Science contributor

Jamie Carter is a Cardiff, U.K.-based freelance science journalist and a regular contributor to Live Science. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners and co-author of The Eclipse Effect, and leads international stargazing and eclipse-chasing tours. His work appears regularly in Space.com, Forbes, New Scientist, BBC Sky at Night, Sky & Telescope, and other major science and astronomy publications. He is also the editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.