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LiveScience
LiveScience
Harry Baker

NASA spots Japan's doomed 'Resilience' moon lander from orbit — and it's surrounded by far-flung debris

Photo of the crash site with a white box around it.

Moon-orbiting spacecraft belonging to NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have both snapped photos of Japan's ruined lunar lander Resilience, following its catastrophic "hard landing" earlier this month. Some of the images — the first to visually confirm the spacecraft's fate — show pieces of debris scattered across the surrounding area.

The Resilience lunar lander, made and operated by the Japanese company ispace, was scheduled to land in the Mare Frigoris, or "Sea of Cold," region of the moon's northern hemisphere on June 5. The lander was carrying a range of scientific experiments, as well as Europe's first ever lunar rover, named Tenacious, which was set to deploy an art piece known as "the Moonhouse" on the lunar surface.

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