Chandrayaan 2: Vikram lander's impact site, 'extensive' debris field found in images taken by NASA's lunar orbiter

On 11 November, the American space agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flew over the planned landing site of the Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lander near the moon's South Pole. Over the course of this pass, the LRO captured an image of the impact site and the debris nearby from the Vikram lander's crash-landing on 7 September. This is the first time a publicly-released image has identified the lander's impact site and debris field.

The image shows the Vikram lander's impact (confirmed or likely debris, in green dots), as well as places where the surface was disturbed – where small flyaway bits of the lander might have moved some of the regolith (soil-like material covering the moon's surface).

Vikram lander's ejecta as seen by LRO's camera. Image: NASA

Also marked in the image is a piece of debris identified by Shanmuga Subramanian, an Indian computer programmer and mechanical engineer, marked as "S". The first of the debris was spotted by Shanmuga roughly 750 meters northwest of the main impact site, and corresponded to a single bright pixel in a mosaic taken by the LRO on 11 November. This image also best shows the impact crater, and the lander's "extensive debris field", NASA said in a press release.

@NASA has credited me for finding Vikram Lander on Moon's surface#VikramLander #Chandrayaan2@timesofindia @TimesNow @NDTV pic.twitter.com/2LLWq5UFq9

— Shan (@Ramanean) December 2, 2019

The largest chunks of debris are a pair of green dots, each around 2x2 pixels in size, which cast a one-pixel shadow on the moon's surface, NASA added.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is yet to share their comments on the image publicly. The Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lander was aiming for a smooth plain, some 600 kilometers from the south pole. ISRO lost contact with the Vikram lander moments before the scheduled touchdown. Despite the failed soft-landing, getting as close to the surface as Vikram did was an amazing achievement, the agency said.

Before and after images show the Vikram impact point. Changes to the surface are subtle and are more easily seen in these images than earlier ones. Image: NASA/LRO

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