CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft around the moon has discovered the most likely crash of the lost lunar lander in Russia.
The Luna 25 lander crashed into the moon last month, a harsh end to Russia’s first lunar project in nearly part of a century. Based on observations from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA said Thursday that it appears to have had an effect in creating a crater 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter.
This new crater is about 400 kilometers from the spacecraft’s planned landing site at the lunar south pole and further north. NASA’s spacecraft did not discover any hint of a crater there in photographs taken during a flyby last year.
It is on the steep inner rim of a significantly larger ancient crater.
Since the newly discovered crater is close to where scientists crashed the Russian lunar lander, “it most likely came from this mission, rather than an herbal impactor,” NASA said in a statement.