NASA’s Spacecraft Captures Surfboard-shaped Mysterious Object Circling The Moon

A mysterious, surfboard-shaped object near the surface of the moon was seen in photos taken by Nasa of the moon last month. The images featuring the mysterious object were released by the space agency on Friday.

The photos were taken by Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a Nasa spacecraft launched in 2009 to study the Moon.

A report by the New York Post compared the thin horizontal line captured in the images as an object that roughly resembles the board used by fictional superhero Silver Surfer who appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

However, later the report and Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science at Washington University in St. Louis Paul Byrne said that the curious object is not a fictional character or even a UFO.

It is a South Korean spacecraft.

NASA’s LRO captured several photos of its Korean counterpart, Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s Danuri lunar orbiter. The American space agency said that Danuri and LRO zipped past each other in parallel but opposite directions between March 5 and March 6.

The image captured by Danuri, orbiting the moon since December 2022, appears distorted due to the rapid relative velocities between it and the LRO, reaching about 7,200 miles per hour.

Due to this the photo of the Korean spacecraft appears like a smear and is reduced to 10 times its size. It is also due to LRO’s camera’s short exposure time.

Danuri is South Korea’s first spacecraft at the moon and Nasa’s LRO has been orbiting the moon for 15 years now.

NASA said it required “exquisite timing” on LRO’s part to capture a photo of Danuri. “Due to the fast relative velocities (>3.2 kilometers per second), exquisite timing was required to point LROC to the right place at the right time. The flight paths of the two vehicles were nearly parallel but in opposite directions, resulting in extreme relative velocity. The LROC NAC exposure time was very short, only 0.338 milliseconds,” Nasa said on its LROC blog hosted by the University of Arizona.

“As always, the talented LRO operations team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enabled the LROC observations,” it further added, thanking the team in Maryland for pinpointing its camera at the right time and place to catch a glimpse of Danuri.

South Korean spacecraft Danuri also photographed the LRO as it passed about 18 kms above Nasa’s LRO on April 7 last year.

Location: Washington DC, United States of America (USA)