Last night’s lunar eclipse, as seen from Earth, looked like a solar eclipse, as seen from Luna.
Firefly Aerospace‘s NASA-funded Blue Ghost lunar lander recently became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully land on Earth’s moon Luna. Blue Ghost’s mission is designed to last a single lunar day, about two terrestrial weeks. Last night it photographed the eclipse from its landing site at Mare Crisium.
Due to is larger size, Earth appears almost four times larger from Luna than Luna appears from Earth, but in Blue Ghost’s eclipse photo, we can still see sunlight refracting around Earth’s atmosphere: a diamond ring of sunrises and sunsets.
Eclipse from Earth (left) and from Luna (right), 2025 March 14. NASA/Firefly Aerospace.
Blue Ghost was not the first spacecraft to photograph an eclipse from Luna; that was Surveyor III on 1967 April 24.
Thanks, Mark! I enjoy reading your posts as well.