NASA publishes a photo of the crash site of the Israeli spacecraft on the moon

NASA released a photo last week of what it says is the site of the crash of Israel's lunar lander Beresheet, developed by SpaceIL, an Israeli non-profit organization.

The photo was taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) 11 days after the probe struck the moon's surface on April 11, wiping out Israel's hopes of becoming the fourth-largest country in the world (after Russia, China and the United States). a controlled moon landing.

The LROC took this image 90 km above the surface, capturing a dark blur of about 10 meters wide that indicates the point of impact, NASA said. "The dark tone suggests a roughened surface by the hard landing, which is less reflective than a clean, smooth surface," the text adds.

"The slight halo around the burr could come from the impact associated gas or fine soil particles blown outward during the descent of Beresheet, which smoothed the ground around the site. landing, thus making it very reflective, "said NASA.

NASA stated that she knew the coordinates of the landing site because of Beresheet's radio tracking and that she was able to reference 11 images "before" of the area taken during the past year. 39, a decade and three "after". The space organization also referred to craters previously created by spacecraft of similar size – GRAIL in 2012, LADEE in 2014 – which hit the moon at about the same speed.

"We have seen that the white tail that extends from the halo of landing to the south is a shape that corresponds to the descent trajectory of Beresheet and its approach angle," he said. -he declares.

The LROC should take pictures of the landing site when it returns to the same area on May 19.

SpaceIL was funded by philanthropists, including its chairman Morris Khan, an entrepreneur between Israel and South Africa, but received government funding, including $ 2 million from the Ministry of Science and Technology. The project as a whole cost about $ 100 million.

Some 48 hours after the accident, SpaceIL announced the construction of a new spacecraft dubbed Beresheet 2 and the launch of a new mission on the Moon.