Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost mission has captured a rare and striking image of a total solar eclipse from the Moon’s surface. The lander, equipped with a wide lens camera, managed to capture the event despite its less-than-ideal optics. The resulting footage shows a glowing ring of light, reminiscent of solar totality seen on Earth.
The Blue Ghost lander had to rely on battery power during the eclipse, as it couldn’t harness sunlight due to the Moon’s shadow blocking the solar panels. However, the team successfully captured an image of totality, revealing a diamond ring effect caused by sunlight peeking through valleys on the Moon’s surface.
A key difference between this lunar eclipse and those observed from Earth is the apparent size of our planet compared to the Sun. From the Moon’s perspective, Earth appears three times larger than it does from Earth. This means that totality lasts for about 2 hours and 16 minutes, a significantly longer duration than what occurs on our planet.
The image also showcases the “ring of fire” – a phenomenon created by sunlight passing through the atmosphere and refracted into Earth’s dark shadow cone. This effect gives the Moon its reddish hue during total lunar eclipses.
This achievement marks the midpoint of Blue Ghost’s two-week mission on the Moon, with all payloads having been successfully deployed. The lander has been conducting various experiments, including deploying a drill that demonstrated surface operations and a vacuum cleaner-like sample collector.
As future human astronauts may face similar challenges, this mission demonstrates the capabilities of robotic explorers to capture stunning celestial events from unique vantage points.
Source: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/a-total-solar-eclipse-from-the-moon