NASA orbiter spots Russia’s Luna-25 crash site on Moon

Nearly two weeks after Russia’s Luna-25 lunar probe crashed into the Moon, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft spotted a crater that could have been caused by the ill-fated mission’s crash.

Luna-25, Russia’s first moon probe in 47 years, smashed into the lunar surface on Aug. 19.

The crash blasted out a crater, which NASA’s sharp-eyed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) likely found last week, agency officials said.

 

The LRO team imaged the area with the probe’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on Aug. 24, then compared the new photos with pictures of the same region captured previously by LROC, most recently in June 2022. This work revealed a bright, fresh crater on the moon that was gouged out in the past 14 months.

“Since this new crater is close to the Luna-25 estimated impact point, the LRO team concludes it is likely to be from that mission, rather than a natural impactor,” NASA officials said in a statement today (Aug. 31) announcing the find.

“The new crater is about 33 feet (10 meters) wide and lies at about 58 degrees south latitude, on the steep inner rim of the moon’s Pontécoulant G crater,” the statement added. The impact site is roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Luna-25’s planned landing site, which lies at 69.5 degrees south latitude.

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