Moments before dying, Japan’s lunar lander snaps glorious photo of Earth during a total solar eclipse

Days earlier than Japan’s Hakuto-R lunar lander apparently crashed into the moon’s floor (opens in new tab) on Tuesday (April 25), it snapped a very attractive image of our planet. The picture, which is paying homage to Apollo 8’s iconic “Earthrise” (opens in new tab) picture, exhibits our planet sitting on prime of the lunar horizon like an ideal blue marble. The moon’s shadow could be seen passing over Australia, which was experiencing a complete photo voltaic eclipse on the time (April 20).

Hakuto-R launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as a part of Tokyo-based personal house firm ispace’s Mission 1 final December. If it had been profitable, it will have represented the primary industrial craft to the touch down on the moon. Sadly, that wasn’t within the playing cards. 

Earlier this week, Hakuto-R made its remaining strategy towards the lunar floor. It had traveled 879,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) to achieve its place in orbit across the moon. However because the craft started its 60-mile (100 km) descent, floor controllers unexpectedly misplaced contact with it, The Washington Publish reported (opens in new tab). After a number of frantic minutes, mission controllers concluded that the spacecraft had not landed as meant.