Photos of Sunset on the Moon Aren’t Just Striking, They Could Offer Clues to Mysterious Phenomenon

A private lunar lander has captured the first high-definition images of the sunset from the moon.

Firefly Aerospace, a private space company, first launched their Blue Ghost moon lander on January 15, attached to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. After separating from the rocket, the spacecraft successfully landed on the moon on March 2, the company said in a release.

The aerospace firm said the moon lander is “the first fully successful commercial Moon landing” and completed 100% of its "mission objectives."

The 14-day mission is also the longest commercial operation on the Moon to date, they added. On March 16, the spacecraft operated for more than five hours into the lunar night before dying from a lack of solar energy. Before the spacecraft died, it collected important data and took stunning photos of the lunar sunset. 

“There was nothing easy about this mission,” Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim told Fox Weather. “I think that you heard our chief engineer come up and say, ‘Y’all stuck the landing, and we’re on the Moon.’ And shortly after that, the team finally got to celebrate, but instantly they went back to operating the payloads and collecting all the science data and beaming it down to the Earth.”

One of the historic photos even included Venus in the distance, according to Firefly Aerospace. Scientists are planning to further analyze the photos for a mysterious phenomenon known as lunar horizon glow. (The last astronaut to walk on the moon, Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan, first documented the theory more than 50 years ago.)

“What we’ve got is a really beautiful, aesthetic image showing some really unusual features,” NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Joel Kearns said at a press conference, the Associated Press reported.

"Lunar dust particles can become charged due to exposure to the solar ultraviolet radiation," Kearns said, according to Fox Weather. "These particles can experience what we think is electrostatic repulsion, causing them to lift off of the lunar surface."

Scientists believe this effect can cause dirt or bedrock on the surface to appear to dance in the sunlight, the report said.

As part of the expedition, Blue Ghost carried out 10 experiments for NASA under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. 

“We’re incredibly proud of the demonstrations Blue Ghost enabled from tracking GPS signals on the Moon for the first time to robotically drilling and collecting science deeper into the lunar surface than ever before,” Kim said, according to the company.

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Though the lunar lander is not expected to survive the two-week, bitterly cold lunar night, the AP reported, the team will try to reactivate the spacecraft in early April.