NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been playing a very interesting game of hide-and-seek with Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), which touched down on the lunar surface on Jan. 19.
LRO has been trying to ping SLIM's retroreflector, a dome-shaped, cookie-sized structure that's affixed to the lander's back, just beneath its solar panels. The first eight times LRO fired its laser at SLIM, it failed to hit the retroreflector. But on May 24, during two successive orbits, LRO succeeded: SLIM's retroreflectors had been found.
