Sunrise on the Moon: Blue Ghost Captures Breathtaking Photo

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander has captured a gorgeous shot of sunrise on the moon as it begins its workday on the lunar surface.

Blue Ghost aced its lunar landing attempt on Sunday (March 2), setting down close to Mons Latreille, a solitary lunar peak in the vast basin Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") in the northeastern region of the moon's near side.

And the spacecraft is already getting to work, starting up its science payloads and capturing amazing images of its surroundings and the distant Earth from the lunar surface.

'The latest image, posted by Firefly on the social media platform X on Monday (March 3), shows a dramatic sunrise, with the intensely bright sun contrasting with shadowed craters on an uneven lunar surface.

"Rise and shine! Firefly's Blue Ghost lander captured its first sunrise on the moon, marking the beginning of the lunar day and the start of surface operations in its new home," the post reads.

Firefly added that many of the 10 NASA science payloads aboard the lander have begun operating and will continue operations for the next two weeks and into the lunar night, when the solar-powered mission is set to conclude. The instruments will contribute to studies in a range of areas, including lunar composition, geology and heat flow on the moon and space weather. Blue Ghost will also test drilling technology, and its camera aims to capture how lunar dust levitates on the surface at sunset.

The landing, which came 46 days after Blue Ghost's Jan. 15 launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, marked a tremendous success for the company,

"Firefly is literally and figuratively over the moon," Firefly CEO Jason Kim said in a post-landing statement on Sunday.

"This bold, unstoppable team has proven we're well equipped to deliver reliable, affordable access to the moon, and we won't stop there," Kim continued. "With annual lunar missions, Firefly is paving the way for a lasting lunar presence that will help unlock access to the rest of the solar system for our nation, our partners and the world."

Blue Ghost was selected through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which contracts private landers to put the agency's science and technology instruments on the moon in support of the Artemis program.

Private U.S. firm Intuitive Machines' second lander, the Athena IM-2 spacecraft, is also a part of CLPS. Athena entered lunar orbit on Monday, and teams are now preparing for a landing attempt near the lunar south pole on Thursday (March 6).

That's not the only private spacecraft preparing to land on the moon. Tokyo-based ispace's Resilience lander, which launched on the same rocket as Blue Ghost, is currently on its own, elongated path to the moon, eyeing a landing attempt in late May or early June.