New Blue Marble image from Blue Ghost spacecraft
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft captured its own version of the iconic Blue Marble image on January 23, 2025. And doesn’t our planet look as beautiful as ever? The craft captured the shot from 4,200 miles (6,700 km) above Earth, while orbiting Earth ahead of its journey to the moon early next month. Blue Ghost launched on January 15, 2025, and is expected to reach the lunar surface on March 2, 2025.
When it reaches the moon, Blue Ghost’s will perform an array of science tasks. It will take soil samples, investigate heat flow beneath the lunar crust, test a radiation-resistant computer and much more. And it will also gaze back at Earth again, taking X-ray images of our planet’s magnetosphere.
Our #GhostRiders captured the beauty of our home planet during another Earth orbit burn. This second engine burn (and first critical burn) adjusted Blue Ghost's apogee (the furthest point from Earth) using just our Spectre RCS thrusters. With just over two weeks left in Earth… pic.twitter.com/I1KBVEJSyy
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) January 24, 2025
This video was captured during one of Blue Ghost’s engine burns, when the spacecraft fired its thrusters to adjust its orbit around our planet.
On its way to the moon
Blue Ghost is currently in high orbit around Earth. It’s spending the first 25 days after its January 15 launch in Earth orbit, gradually changing its trajectory until it can swing out from our planet’s gravitational pull and make a four-day journey to lunar orbit. After 16 days orbiting the moon, it should finally be able to land on its surface on March 2, 2025. It will then finally begin 14 days of science operations.
Firefly Aeronautics wrote:
Blue Ghost captured the beauty of our home planet during another Earth orbit burn. This second engine burn (and first critical burn) adjusted Blue Ghost’s apogee (the farthest point from Earth) using just our Spectre RCS thrusters. With just over two weeks left in Earth orbit before our trans-lunar injection [the maneuver that takes a spacecraft from Earth orbit to moon orbit], our team will continue operating our NASA payloads onboard and capturing science data along the way!
Bottom line: Firefly Aeronautics’ Blue Ghost lunar spacecraft took this “Blue Marble” image of Earth from orbit around our planet.
The post New Blue Marble image from Blue Ghost spacecraft first appeared on EarthSky.