Days before Japan's Hakuto-R lunar lander apparently crashed into the moon's surface on Tuesday (April 25), it snapped a truly gorgeous picture of our planet. The image, which is reminiscent of Apollo 8's iconic "Earthrise" photo, shows our planet sitting on top of the lunar horizon like a perfect blue marble. The moon's shadow can be seen passing over Australia, which was experiencing a total solar eclipse at the time (April 20).
Hakuto-R launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of Tokyo-based private space company ispace's Mission 1 last December. If it had been successful, it would have represented the first commercial craft to touch down on the moon. Unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards.
