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A new crater has appeared on the moon, likely created when the Russian Luna 25 unmanned probe crashed into the moon’s surface.
Images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and released by the agency on Thursday reveal new craters.
Luna 25, Russia’s first lunar lander in 47 years, was expected to launch on August 10 and land near the moon’s south pole a few weeks later.
However, communications with the spacecraft were interrupted, and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos reported that an “emergency situation” occurred as Luna 25 attempted to enter lunar orbit before landing on August 19. .
Roscosmos officials later said engine failure was likely the cause of the accident.
The agency shared an estimate of the impact site on August 21, allowing members of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team to command the spacecraft to take images of the site the next day.
The spacecraft took images for four hours on August 24, revealing the new crater. These photos were compared to those taken at the same location before the crash, taken in June 2022.
The report said the new crater was close to the estimated impact point, leading the spacecraft team to conclude that it was likely Luna 25’s final resting place. NASA release.
The crater was 32.8 feet (10 meters) in diameter and 248.5 miles (400 kilometers) short of Luna 25’s landing target.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the moon since 2009, has used previous missions such as India’s Chandrayaan 2 in 2019 to discover impact craters created by collisions with the moon and take images. It has been used.