NASA has discovered a crater on the moon formed from a crashed Russian mission

Russia’s failed space mission left behind crater 10 meters wide on the moon. The Luna 25 spacecraft crashed in August after experiencing a problem before landing on the moon’s south pole. NASA, the US space agency, has released several images of the crash site.

The Russian expedition intended to reach the south pole of the moon on August 21. It was Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years. He also intended to get ahead of the Indian mission, which was finally able to achieve the feat of becoming the first country to land in this lunar region. At the last moment, everything went wrong: Roscosmos confirmed August 20 that his ship was wrecked.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has photographed the new crater that NASA explains in a statement will be the site of the Russian probe’s impact. This 400 kilometers from the place where Russia intended to land.

“The device moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon,” Roscosmos said in August. The company said they would create a special commission to investigate the causes of the failure.

According to preliminary estimates, the ship’s forcing by the missile system turned out to be more than calculated. Because of this, the Russian probe went into a very steep orbit and eventually collided with the surface of the moon.

Russia’s failure in the race to the South Pole of the Moon

Despite the failure of the mission to the moon, Russia has said that it is not so serious and that its space program will continue. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “this is not a reason to despair.” “You just need to analyze the causes and eliminate them next time,” the official said. in accordance with Reuters.

meanwhile, all-terrain vehicle The Indian is already exploring this coveted region of the Moon. This week, the Indian Space Research Organization reported that the spacecraft detected the presence of sulfur in the lunar soil. He also noted that there aluminum, iron, calcium, oxygen and other elements.

Everyone wants to reach the South Pole of the Moon because ice was discovered in the area in the 1990s. Or, equivalently, frozen water. Scientists from the National Academy of Sciences of China have calculated that there may be about 270,000 million tons of water in the form of ice.

NASA is already preparing the Artemis mission, which hopes to send a group of astronauts to the south pole of the moon in 2025. China will also do the same, but has stated that it estimates that this will be achieved by 2030.