Eclipse captured from moon's point of view as lander takes images during 'historic' event
But rather than being the lunar eclipse that was seen from Earth, on the moon it was a solar eclipse.
The images were taken by a camera on board the unmanned Blue Ghost spacecraft which successfully landed on the planet earlier this month.
Operator Firefly Aerospace said it was the first time in history that a commercial company had operated actively on the moon during an eclipse.
In a total lunar eclipse, the Earth lines up between the moon and the sun, hiding the moon from sunlight.
On Friday, the moon turned red in an event known as a blood moon. The full lunar eclipse was visible from North and South America, while in the UK only a partial lunar eclipse was visible.
The first picture of the cosmic event from the moon shows the Earth beginning to block out the sun.
The solar eclipse can also be seen in a reflection of the lander's solar panel in the same picture.
In a caption on X accompanying the 14 March photo, Firefly Aerospace wrote: "BlueGhost" caught her first look at the solar eclipse from the Moon around 12.30 am CDT - notice the glowing ring of light emerge in the reflection of our solar panel as the Earth began to block the sun!"
A second image, captured from the landing site, shows the "diamond ring" as the sun is about to emerge from totality behind Earth.
A third photo showed the Blue Ghost turn a reddish colour during the event.
Firefly Aerospace said: "The red hue is the result of sunlight refracting through the Earth's atmosphere as the sun is blocked by our planet, casting a shadow on the lunar surface. The glowing ring of the eclipse is again seen on Blue Ghost's solar panel."
Blue Ghost's three solar panels have been powering the lander's research instruments for a 14-day mission on the moon.
Read more from Sky News:Rocket with replacement crew for stranded astronauts launchesWhat can being in space for so long do to your health?
The four-legged Blue Ghost, which is the size of a compact car, touched down on 2 March near an ancient volcanic vent on Mare Crisium, a large basin in the northeast corner of the moon's Earth-facing side.
It is carrying 10 scientific payloads and used 21 thrusters to guide itself to touchdown.
It has on board a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperatures as deep as 10 feet.
Firefly Aerospace became the second private firm to carry out a moon landing, though it declared itself the first company to make a "fully successful" soft landing.
Houston-based Intuitive Machine's Odysseus lander made a lopsided touchdown last year, landing mostly intact but dooming many of its onboard instruments.
Only five nations have been successful in soft-landings in the past: The then-Soviet Union, the US, China, India and Japan.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Wall Street Journal
an hour ago
- Wall Street Journal
Fuel Fill-Ups in Space? Musk and Bezos Are Working on It
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are trying to figure out how to pump gas in space. The billionaire space rivals are working on ambitious missions to the moon or Mars, and a crucial design element for each venture is using spacecraft that take on additional fuel while orbiting Earth. Vehicles that could grab propellants in orbit would be less weighed down at liftoff, letting planners design missions to travel farther from Earth with more cargo, scientific gear or crew members, advocates say.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hubble Captures Glorious New Image of That Mysterious Object Cruising Into Our Solar System
As the mysterious interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS plummets through our Solar System, NASA's good old Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best look yet at the interstellar visitor. On July 21, the interstellar interloper passed close enough to Earth — and to Hubble, which orbits us at about 320 miles above the planet — that the veteran space telescope was able to capture a surprisingly detailed image of it, NASA explains in a statement about the image. In the space agency's incredible shot — the second the Hubble has captured since the discovery of 3I/ATLAS — a "teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust," as NASA calls it, is seen trailing behind the puzzling object, which many scientists suspect is a sizable interstellar comet. Discovered a mere five weeks ago on July 1, 3I/ATLAS is only the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, with the first being the ever-mysterious 'Oumuamua back in 2017. As with that strangely elongated visitor, there is some speculation that 3I/ATLAS could be some sort of alien spacecraft — but NASA believes we're looking at the "solid, icy nucleus" of a comet. That said, there's quite a lot about this interstellar visitor that is extraordinary — and unexplained. In an editorial for last month, a pair of astrophysicists posited that 3I/ATLAS is much older than 'Oumuamua and 3I/Borisov, the second-ever recorded interstellar object discovered by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov back in 2019. Those scientists, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor's Aster Taylor and Michigan State University's Darryl Seligman, suggested that this latest interstellar interloper could be anywhere from three to 11 billion years old, and cited its massive speeds of 134,000 mph relative to the Sun as the source of their hypothesis. "Since the influence of the galaxy tends to speed up objects over time," the astrophysicists wrote, "this velocity implies that ATLAS is far older." NASA has, meanwhile, proffered in its latest findings, which have been accepted into the Astrophysical Journal Letters, that 3I/ATLAS' nucleus may be as large as 3.5 miles across or as small as just 1,000 feet in diameter. The new Hubble image played a big role in those estimates, though as the agency noted in another statement, the "solid heart of the comet presently cannot be directly seen, even by Hubble." While scientists continue to glean bits and pieces of information about this out-of-solar-system visitor, there's still one huge, outstanding question about 3I/ATLAS. "No one knows where the comet came from," explained Hubble science leader David Jewitt in the statement. "It's like glimpsing a rifle bullet for a thousandth of a second. You can't project that back with any accuracy to figure out where it started on its path." More on comets: Scientists Just Found Something Very Weird About the Mysterious Object Hurtling Into Our Solar System Solve the daily Crossword


Chicago Tribune
5 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
New sensors are designed to predict flooding in Chicago
As the rain came down in sheets one summer afternoon late last month, Thomas Baranowski was sitting on the back porch of his Garfield Ridge home when his wife, Rose, stepped outside. ''Oh come on, you've got to see this,'' she told him. He followed her down the steep stairwell to their basement, where water was spewing out of their flood drain 'just like a geyser,' Baranowski, 79, recalled. Though he and Rose, 80, are lifelong Chicagoans and no strangers to urban flooding, they didn't see the deluge coming — or the thousands of dollars in water damage that followed. But what if they had been given a heads-up the rain would hit their block so hard? A new initiative recently launched in Chicago is striving to do just that. Verizon, in conjunction with Chicago's Center for Neighborhood Technology and a Michigan-based startup, is equipping the city with technology that will give officials and residents alike the ability to track urban flooding in real time. The venture, project partners say, could eventually help Chicago better respond to and mitigate the impact of flash floods — especially in areas that have historically faced the brunt of torrential rain — as human-made climate change intensifies storms in the Midwest and places pressure on the city's outdated sewer system. At the core of the initiative are wireless floodwater sensors that, using sonar technology, can calculate the depth of nearby water in seconds. The idea is to deploy a network of these sensors citywide, which together will be able to track when and where water levels are rising during a storm. To date, 10 sensors have been installed from South Deering on the Far South Side to Austin on the West Side, with 40 more due for installation over coming months. This marks only the second time in the United States that technology of this kind has been deployed on a citywide scale. The sensors are the product of Hyfi, an Ann Arbor company launched five years ago by University of Michigan engineering professor Branko Kerkez and his former doctoral student, Brandon Wong, after the pair sought to devise a technological solution to changing climate conditions, according to Wong, now CEO of the startup. From California, Wong grew up around weather extremes, from droughts and flooding to wildfires, he said, noting he still remembers days when he'd wake up to 'ash raining' from a bright orange sky. But it wasn't until he moved out to Michigan for graduate school 12 years ago and shortly after saw historic flooding kill two people and cause millions of dollars of damage in Detroit that Wong knew he wanted to find a way to temper the impact of climate disasters. Hyfi sensors can detect how high floodwaters are rising within a 30-foot radius by generating a continuous, nearly inaudible sound wave pulse on the water's surface. To detect urban flooding, sensors are placed in low-lying areas, along viaducts and under manhole covers to see where water is pooling first or backing up, down to a city's pipes. Data the sensors collect is reported to a central server, which Hyfi then visualizes in a map of real-time flood conditions. The technology is making its Chicago debut as part of a larger effort by Verizon, using Hyfi's sensor platform, to improve flood response and stormwater management systems across the country. The initiative first rolled out in New Orleans last summer and is due to launch in Detroit over the next year, according to Donna Epps, chief responsible business officer at Verizon. For now, as sensors are piloted in Chicago, water level readings won't be widely available quite yet, Wong said, but the goal is to have data live on a public-facing platform that residents can access. Wong pointed to New Orleans, where, after an initial citywide installation of 27 Hyfi sensors, the city integrated the data into its own public alert system. The sensors could give communities and first responders a warning that flooding is imminent up to an hour before it hits, Wong says. That advance notice, Wong said, could be indispensable to local residents fearful of flood damage in their homes and for avoiding streets prone to flooding. Almost every time it's rained this year, Emmanuel Garcia has noticed that water pools on the streets and sidewalks around Belmont Cragin, where the 17-year-old has lived his entire life, he said. His family has had to stay in their apartment during storms for fear of encountering dangerous roadway conditions or having their basement flood, Garcia said. Jean Flisk, 58, who grew up in Canaryville but now lives on the Southwest Side, said she 'rain preps' her basement, which frequently floods during storms. 'If they say there's a flood warning or the rain is going to be really bad, I have to go and move everything in the basement … just in case,' she said. 'It's aggravating, it's a pain. I don't know if there's something to do.' There is, Hyfi and Verizon hope. Beyond proactively reporting floods, the project's partners imagine that over time, data can help inform long-term resilience planning, they say, particularly in areas of the city that have habitually been vulnerable to significant flooding. Hyfi and Verizon are also collaborating with the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a Chicago-based urban research group, to host community meetings where residents can give their input on where and how they'd like to see sensors used. So far, the group has hosted meetings in Chatham and Belmont Cragin, two neighborhoods troubled with chronic flooding, with several more planned for this year. The meetings were held in tandem with local organizations, including the Greater Chatham Initiative on the South Side and the Grassroots Empowerment Mission and North River Commission on the Northwest Side. With these meetings and the venture overall, the broader goal is to chart a path forward where 'we systemically even stop the flooding from happening,' Center for Neighborhood Technology CEO Nina Idemudia said. 'How do we work on improving the drainage system, improving where we make capital improvements in order to make sure the water is draining?' Sensors won't reveal new insights into which parts of Chicago are hit hardest by flooding, Idemudia said, but it could draw awareness to a long-standing need. She pointed to a 2019 study by the center that found urban flooding in Chicago disproportionately affects communities of color. 'Data is another way of accountability, right?' Idemudia said. 'It's one way to say you can't deny our current circumstances or our lived experience anymore. Here's the hard data. We're going to hold you to making changes until the outlook and impact of this data changes.' Following recent rainfall, the lived impact of urban flooding has been in full view. Since Wednesday, representatives from Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, alongside the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Small Business Administration and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and Office of Homeland Security, have been going door to door assessing homes for damage from storms and subsequent flooding that swept through the city last month. These assessments follow disaster proclamations both Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle issued on Aug. 6 to assist residents in recovering from the July storms. They will help determine if and how much government assistance residents will qualify for, according to OEMC Emergency Services Manager Kaila Lariviere. Assessment teams have been directing their efforts based on a survey released a few weeks ago that gave residents the chance to self-report if they had been affected by the storms. Some 2,900 Cook County and Chicago residents reported damages, Lariviere said. Last Thursday, assessment teams spent the morning walking through Garfield Ridge on the Southwest Side. One of the surveyed homes belonged to Larry Anguiano, a husband and father whose basement flooded entirely in last month's storms, forcing his family to replace rugs, carpets and furniture in their home of the past five years, he told the Tribune. 'It was extremely quick,' he said, adding that since, he's been wary of it happening all over again. 'If there's that type of rain and you see it fill up in the streets, (you think), 'Oh no.'' The Baranowskis, who were also visited by damage assessment teams last week, echoed the sentiment. The past few weeks have been 'backbreaking' work to replace the walls and flooring of their flooded basement, Hope Baranowski said. The couple plans to install a flood control system because 'we can't have this happen again,' Thomas added. When Chicago received from 1.5 to 4.5 inches of rainfall across the city last week, according to the National Weather Service, the Baranowskis waited anxiously for the storms to pass. 'I was scared to death,' Hope Baranowski recalled.