Blue Ghost moon lander sends back stunning photo of eclipse

Blue Ghost's view of the solar eclipse from the moon.

What does an eclipse look like from the moon? Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander just sent back a stunning image from the lunar surface.

The commercial space company’s lander, which touched down on the moon’s surface without a hitch on March 2 as part of a mission for NASA, took a high-definition image of the total lunar eclipse from its top deck in the early hours of Friday — and it’s mighty beautiful.

“Blue Ghost caught her first look at the solar eclipse from the Moon around 12:30 am CDT on March 14 from our landing site in Mare Crisium,” Firefly wrote with the release of the image. “Notice the glowing ring of light emerge in the reflection of our solar panel as Earth began to block the sun.”

Blue Ghost’s view of the solar eclipse from the Moon.
Credit: Firefly Aerospace

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U.S. company Firefly Aerospace just landed on the moon with its Blue Ghost spacecraft

According to the company, it’s “the first time in history a commercial company will be actively operating on the Moon and able to observe a total solar eclipse where the Earth blocks the sun and casts a shadow on the lunar surface.”

Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched on Jan. 15 and landed on the moon on March 2 after 45-day trip — and the photos Blue Ghost has been sending back are breathtaking. In the above photo, you can also see the Blue Ghost lander’s NASA equipment, including a Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager, Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder mast, and X-band antenna.

On Friday, Firefly also posted an image taken on March 3, the day after Blue Ghost landed on the moon, of a view of Earth taken with the lander’s wide-lens camera.