From its position in low lunar orbit, South Korea’s first lunar mission captured a rare image of the Earth rising above the satellite’s horizon.
The Danuri satellite transmitted black and white images taken from a high-quality camera on December 24 and 28, but only published by the Korean Aerospace Institute this week.
The dusty surface of the moon in these frames looks unnatural, like a low-quality landscape created in a three-dimensional editor. The footage was taken at an altitude of 124 kilometers and 344 kilometers above the surface.
Danuri was launched on August 5 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, marking South Korea’s first deep space mission. On December 17, the spacecraft performed its first maneuver, entering the orbit of the Moon. This 500-kilogram probe is equipped with four South Korean-developed instruments, as well as a NASA-supplied camera for taking pictures of the surface.
In low orbit, Danuri will study the umbra regions of the Moon, where there may be some ice.
