Latest news with #MareCrisium
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
See a lunar scar darken the crescent moon tonight
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. May 30 presents a perfect opportunity to spot Mare Crisium — a dark Nevada-sized patch — etched into the delicate curve of the crescent moon before it sinks below the horizon around midnight. Skywatchers in the U.S. will find the moon's sickle-like form hanging around 30 degrees above the western horizon after sunset on May 30, with around 16% of its surface illuminated by direct sunlight, according to stargazing website On May 30, the moon is in the constellation Cancer, with the Beehive cluster close to its left and Mars shining just beyond. To the right, the bright stars Castor and Pollux also make an appearance. The moon is among the most popular targets for astronomers, thanks to the ever-shifting play of light and shadow across its surface. As it makes its near month-long journey around Earth, a myriad of different regions and features come into stark relief, changing night by night. And yet, for all this variety, the moon only ever shows a single side to us as it's tidally locked to our planet. One such feature is the dark lunar maria (Latin for 'seas'), formed when molten lava flooded a network of impact basins that scarred the moon's surface billions of years ago. These lava flows swiftly cooled in the frigid environment of space, leaving behind vast basaltic plains that remain easily visible to the naked eye today. Mare Crisium, or the 'Sea of Crises', can be spotted on the night of May 30 as an oval-shaped dark patch on the moon's northeastern limb, close to the terminator — the line that separates day from night on any solar system body. Spanning 345 miles (555 kilometers), this lunar mare is visible to the naked eye, though a pair of 10x50 binoculars will reveal more of the craggy region surrounding the lunar sea. An entry-level 6-inch telescope, meanwhile, will allow you to pick out the 14-mile-wide (23 km) Picard Crater that stands alone near the south-western rim of the Nevada-sized plane, according to NASA. Just above Picard lies the similarly sized Peirce Crater, with the smaller Swift Crater just beyond. Before the moon dips below the western horizon around midnight local time, moongazers may also catch sight of its shadowed expanse faintly glowing — an effect known as earthshine, caused by sunlight reflected off Earth softly illuminating the moon's night side. TOP TELESCOPE PICK: Want to explore the lunar surface for yourself? The Celestron NexStar 4SE is ideal for beginners wanting quality, reliable and quick views of celestial objects. For a more in-depth look at our Celestron NexStar 4SE review. The closest humans have come to Mare Crisium was during the final moon mission of the Apollo era, when Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt landed on the eastern edge of Mare Serenitatis. However, Mare Crisium did serve as the landing site of the Soviet Luna 15 and Luna 24 robotic missions, and it made headlines again in March 2025 with the successful touchdown of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander. Anyone interested in exploring the lunar surface for themselves should check out our guides to the best binocular and telescope deals available in 2025. Also, be sure to read up on our guide to photographing and exploring the moon's surface. Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Photos: Lunar lander gets rare view of eclipse from the moon
The Brief Friday morning's blood moon lunar eclipse appeared, from Earth, to turn the moon dark red. From the moon, the Earth appeared to block out the sun. The unique view was captured by Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - While Earthlings were watching the moon almost disappear during Friday morning's lunar eclipse, a robotic lander on the moon was looking back and getting a very different – and very rare – view. Firefly's Blue Ghost lander captured nearly unprecedented images of what appeared, from its perspective in the moon's Mare Crisium, to be a total solar eclipse as Earth blocked out the sun. A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth passes between the moon and the sun, blocking the sun's light from reaching the moon. View from Earth Seen from Earth, the moon gradually gets darker as our planet blocks more and more of the sun's light, eventually blocking it entirely for a brief time. Earth's atmosphere filters out the blue wavelengths of light, the moon takes on a reddish glow, leading to the "blood moon" nickname. View from the moon From the moon's perspective, it's the sun that's getting blocked. Blue Ghost's cameras captured a "diamond ring" phenomenon where just a sliver of the sun was visible outside of Earth's shadow, similar to what was observed on Earth during last year's solar eclipse. Because of the extremely cold temperatures in the lunar darkness, the company had to wait until the lander's antenna warmed back up before transmitting the images. Later Friday, they shared a time-lapse video showing the red hue cast by the eclipse, as seen from the lander. Dig deeper Blue Ghost's photos, while remarkable, aren't the first such images of an eclipse from the moon. NASA's Surveyor 3 lunar probe managed to capture the first-ever view of a solar eclipse from another celestial body during the April 1967 lunar eclipse. In 2009, Japan's Kaguya spacecraft took better images of a similar eclipse while orbiting the moon. The quality of Blue Ghost's images, though, clearly eclipses the grainy black and white shots from that 1967 event. The backstory Blue Ghost is a lunar lander built by Firefly Aerospace to carry NASA payloads to the moon as part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. After blasting off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in January, the robotic lander touched down on the lunar surface March 2, kicking off what was expected to be about a two-week mission utilizing 10 different NASA instruments onboard. Blue Ghost became the first privately funded craft to land successfully upright on the moon. Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander toppled over and ended up on its side while landing last year, and an identical fate befell the company's Athena lander again last week. The Source Information in this story came from NASA, Firely Aerospace's X account, FOX Weather, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and previous FOX Television Stations reporting.
