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Firefly Aerospace made history on March 2, 2025, when its Blue Ghost lander successfully touched down on the Moon. After a successful 14-day mission of transmitting more than 119 GB of data back to Earth, it captured something never seen before—high-definition images of a lunar sunset on March 16. NASA and Firefly Aerospace shared the breathtaking images at a press conference on March 18 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and some even show Earth and Venus glowing in the distance.
This is the first time in history that a private company has operated on the Moon and witnessed a solar eclipse—when Earth blocks the Sun and casts a shadow across the lunar surface. During this rare event, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander used its Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS), Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC), and Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) to monitor changes in lunar dust and radiation levels. After sunset, Blue Ghost continued operating for five more hours, capturing images to study how dust behavior shifts in the absence of sunlight.
“These images, captured by different camera angles and stitched together in a video, show a horizon glow that comes to life just above the Moon’s surface as the Sun goes down,” Firefly Aerospace explains in an update. Meanwhile, the team took to social media to celebrate the historic milestone, sharing the stunning photos with the caption, “Sunsets hit differently on the Moon!”
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in January as part of NASA’s CLPS program and Artemis campaign. It touched down on the Moon’s northeastern near side on March 2, near Mons Latreille in Mare Crisium, delivering 10 NASA science instruments. Over its two-week mission, it snapped photos, recorded videos, and carried out experiments before shutting down due to a lack of solar power.
“We’re incredibly proud of the demonstrations Blue Ghost enabled from tracking GPS signals on the Moon for the first time to robotically drilling and collecting science deeper into the lunar surface than ever before,” said Firefly CEO Jason Kim in a statement. “We want to extend a huge thank you to the NASA CLPS initiative and the White House administration for serving as the bedrock for this Firefly mission. It has been an honor to enable science and technology experiments that support future missions to the Moons, Mars, and beyond.”
These breathtaking images are more than just visually striking, they’re also a valuable tool for NASA’s research on the Moon. Firefly Aerospace says the photos could help scientists figure out if lunar dust actually lifts off the surface due to the Sun’s influence, creating a glow along the horizon. This idea was first suggested by Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, one of the last people to walk on the Moon back in 1972.
Check out the lunar sunset images in the video below and find out more about the Blue Ghost lander mission on the Firefly Aerospace website.
NASA and Firefly Aerospace just released the first high-definition photos of a lunar sunset from the Moon, captured by the Blue Ghost lander.
Firefly Aerospace: Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | YouTube
NASA: Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | YouTube
Sources: Blue Ghost Mission 1: Live Updates; Firefly Aerospace Successfully Completes 14 Days of Surface Operations on the Moon
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