Ghostly Lunar Sunsets Shot by Private Lander

This handout photograph taken by Firefly Aerospace on March 16, 2025 and released on March 18, shows the lunar surface and the setting sun with Earth and Venus on the horizon, during the lunar mission of Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander. (Photo by HANDOUT / Firefly Aerospace / AFP)
This handout photograph taken by Firefly Aerospace on March 16, 2025 and released on March 18, shows the lunar surface and the setting sun with Earth and Venus on the horizon, during the lunar mission of Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander. (Photo by HANDOUT / Firefly Aerospace / AFP)
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Ghostly Lunar Sunsets Shot by Private Lander

This handout photograph taken by Firefly Aerospace on March 16, 2025 and released on March 18, shows the lunar surface and the setting sun with Earth and Venus on the horizon, during the lunar mission of Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander. (Photo by HANDOUT / Firefly Aerospace / AFP)
This handout photograph taken by Firefly Aerospace on March 16, 2025 and released on March 18, shows the lunar surface and the setting sun with Earth and Venus on the horizon, during the lunar mission of Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander. (Photo by HANDOUT / Firefly Aerospace / AFP)

A private US lander has captured eerie high-definition images of a lunar sunset, which NASA hopes will help unravel the mystery of a strange haze first observed on the Moon in the 1960s.

Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, which published the pictures on Tuesday, became the first private company to land a robotic spacecraft upright on the Moon earlier this month, AFP reported.

Its Blue Ghost lander -- roughly the size of two rhinos side by side -- touched down on March 2 at Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature within Mare Crisium on the Moon's northeastern near side, and operated until March 16 when it powered down with the onset of the lunar night.

One of the new images shows the Sun glowing just above the horizon, its halo tinged with green.
Above it, a small dot marks Venus, while Earth's bright reflection appears almost as large as the Sun at the top of the frame. Another view reveals the setting Sun bathed in a green glow, as seen from a west-facing camera.

Earlier in the mission, Blue Ghost also captured high-definition imagery of a total solar eclipse from the Moon on March 14.

The mission was part of a NASA-industry collaboration aimed at cutting costs and supporting Artemis, the program to return astronauts to the Moon and use lessons learned there to go to Mars.

Firefly Aerospace's spaceflight program director, Ray Allensworth, said the company is already applying lessons to future flights, including Blue Ghost-2 and Blue Ghost-3.

"The lander is absolutely not designed to survive the extreme cold of lunar night, so I think the probability is very low that we will power back on -- but this lander has surprised me," she added.



Injured Seals Get Care and Sanctuary at a New Center in the Netherlands 

A seal swims in a tank at the new seal sanctuary in Lauwersoog, northern Netherlands, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP)
A seal swims in a tank at the new seal sanctuary in Lauwersoog, northern Netherlands, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP)
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Injured Seals Get Care and Sanctuary at a New Center in the Netherlands 

A seal swims in a tank at the new seal sanctuary in Lauwersoog, northern Netherlands, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP)
A seal swims in a tank at the new seal sanctuary in Lauwersoog, northern Netherlands, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP)

Gliding gracefully through the waters at his new home, Witje pauses briefly to peer through a large window at the curious and admiring visitors.

The 4-month-old gray seal is a lucky survivor able to swim in one of nine new tanks at the World Heritage Center, or WEC, a recently opened seal rescue facility in Lauwersoog, in the north of the Netherlands.

He was brought in after being orphaned and was suffering from a swollen flipper and a damaged eye.

“On a yearly basis, we roughly treat about 200 seals,” Sander van Dijk, the curator of the center, told The Associated Press. In 2024, researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands counted around 24,000 seals across the Wadden Sea.

Most are pups who get separated from their mother, known as howlers for their plaintive wailing. Others are injured by floating debris or are struck by passing vessels.

“If we look at our own data over the past 15 years, we just see every year more seals that somehow get entangled in waste in the sea, mostly fishing nets,” Van Dijk said.

The WEC, which officially opened to the public Saturday, replaces the Pieterburen Seal Center, a rescue facility set up in 1971 to treat injured seals found in and around the nearby Wadden Sea, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Witje’s tank is an upgrade from his previous quarters. He gets to swim in water directly from the sea, rather than tap water, in order to maintain a habitat as close as possible to the seals’ natural environment.

“They are adapted to living in seawater. It’s good for their fur. But also seawater, through its salt, has some properties that makes wounds heal faster,” Van Dijk said.

The WEC can treat around 70 seals at a time and has 12 intensive-care units for animals with serious injuries who are able to recover in special enclosures which offer a calm environment. They are prevented from swimming in order to rest and the space is cleaned frequently to prevent infections from waste.

The new building, which cost over 40 million euros ($45 million), with financing provided by local and regional governments as well as charitable organizations, tells more than just the story of the seas. It’s an educational space which teaches visitors about the Wadden Sea, the largest continuous system of intertidal flats in the world, extending along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.

The new facility is significantly closer to the sea than the previous location. The tanks for the 10 seals currently residing at WEC look out over the water. Caregivers at the center are optimistic that Witje will soon recover enough to be released back into the waves.