[HN Gopher] Blue Ghost lander captures sunset shots on moon befo...
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Blue Ghost lander captures sunset shots on moon before falling
silent
Author : pseudolus
Score : 60 points
Date : 2025-03-19 10:45 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| perihelions wrote:
| Here's the other photos of Earth eclipses seen from the moon,
|
| https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/114163135356046535
| celeritascelery wrote:
| I am curious what causes these landers to fail in the bitter cold
| of night? Is it the batteries? It seems like circuitry should be
| fine.
| looperhacks wrote:
| The moon gets _really_ cold, way below spec for most
| electronics. That's why sensitive parts are sometimes in a
| heating component, but that also depends on the battery. And
| yes, cold batteries might not recover properly.
| celeritascelery wrote:
| Is it the actual silicon that can't handle it, or is
| contraction in joints and connections that breaks?
| atkailash wrote:
| Meanwhile voyager is beyond the solar system. I don't see why
| they didn't use something that's not solar so they aren't
| just littering the moon
| amenghra wrote:
| The moon is huge compared to a single thing we can
| currently send there. Comparatively, we are "littering" our
| own atmosphere a ton more during liftoff.
| alwa wrote:
| I can't help but suspect Starship's recent run of
| spectacular explosions might frustrate efforts to launch
| more nuclear-powered craft like the Voyagers too soon...
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > Meanwhile voyager is beyond the solar system
|
| Which is powered by Pu-238 - something which is in short
| supply nowadays, extremely expensive and pretty much
| inaccessible for a private company like Firefly who built
| the Blue Ghost lander.
|
| > I don't see why they didn't use something that's not
| solar
|
| Cost. NASA paid Firefly $101.5M for the Blue-Ghost 1
| contract [1]. Just the RTG used on the MSL Mars Lander cost
| $109M [2] (not counting the R&D costs).
|
| > so they aren't just littering the moon
|
| Well, right now it is harming no one. They can only be seen
| by cameras orbiting the moon. If and when humanity starts
| living on the moon, these landers will go in museums and
| will no longer be "litter".
|
| [1] https://spaceflightnow.com/2025/03/18/firefly-
| aerospaces-blu...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-
| mission_radioisotope_the...
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't understand these photos at all. Why does it look like
| there are two suns in two of the photos -- one at the horizon and
| one above?
|
| Is one of them lens flare or something? I don't think the top one
| could be an overexposed earth because we're obviously looking at
| the earth's dark side. And in the other photo (middle in the
| galley) it looks like a little bit of the earth is eclipsing the
| second sun.
| zokier wrote:
| > I don't think the top one could be an overexposed earth
| because we're obviously looking at the earth's dark side
|
| It's Earth. Venus is also visible as small dot.
| verisimi wrote:
| No stars though.
| taberiand wrote:
| You don't usually see stars during the day
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sun on the horizon, Earth above it. (See caption.)
| croisillon wrote:
| Eu so queria te contar
|
| Que eu fui la fora e vi dois sois num dia
|
| E a vida que ardia sem explicacao
| gus_massa wrote:
| [This is part of the lyric of a song
| https://www.musixmatch.com/es/letras/C%C3%A1ssia-
| Eller/O-Seg... This kind of comments are usually downvoted
| here.]
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