Supermassive Black Hole Burps Matter at Near-Light Speeds After Consuming Gas Too Fast
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and India’s Chandrayaan-2 orbiter have captured images of Japan’s Resilience lunar lander after it suffered a catastrophic crash on the Moon. Resilience, developed by private firm ispace, had been attempting to touch down in the Mare Frigoris region on June 5. The lander was carrying scientific experiments and a small European lunar rover, Tenacious, slated to deploy an art model on the surface. Contact was lost about 100 seconds before the planned touchdown, and the new images show debris scattered around the impact site. These images provide the first confirmation of Resilience’s fate.
Crash site images reveal debris field
According to the captured crash site image by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 11, 2025, there is a dark smudge of disturbed regolith where Resilience hit the surface. India’s Chandrayaan-2 orbiter captured follow-up images on June 16 showing the debris field in greater detail. Astronomy experts identified at least a dozen fragments of the lander and its small rover Tenacious in these photos.
One enthusiast catalogued at least 12 separate debris items, though their exact spread is unclear. A faint bright halo of ejected dust surrounds the smudge, consistent with a violent impact. These detailed views provide clues to investigators piecing together how Resilience broke apart on impact.
Laser rangefinder fault pinpointed as cause
Resilience’s onboard laser altimeter began lagging about 100 seconds before landing, causing the descent to proceed too fast. On June 24, ispace confirmed that this rangefinder malfunction during descent prevented the lander from decelerating to the planned touchdown speed. The hard impact “likely tore the spacecraft apart” and destroyed all scientific payloads.
Investigators are examining factors like lunar surface reflectivity or hardware degradation as possible triggers of the failure. Resilience was ispace’s second Hakuto-R moon lander; its predecessor (April 2023) likewise crash-landed. CEO Takeshi Hakamada said the company is working on fixes and “will not let this be a setback” as it pursues future lunar missions.
For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who’sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.
More than five decades after orbiting the Earth, the Soviet-era Venus probe Kosmos-482 re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on May 10, 2025, this time perplexing scientists about its precise re-entry. The mission was first flung into space in 1972, but a rocket failure left the probe stuck in high orbit around Earth instead of sending it on a course to Venus. The spacecraft’s descent capsule, which weighed about 495 kilograms, is believed to have fallen to Earth in the Indian Ocean, off Jakarta. However, various tracking models pointed to different locations of the exact impact, evidencing the severe limitations of predicting re-entries of space debris.
Tracking Soviet Probe Kosmos-482’s Reentry Exposes Gaps in Space Object Forecasting Models
As per a report from Space.com, other organisations, including Roscosmos, the U.S. Department of Defence, and the European Space Agency, made conflicting predictions demonstrating just how hard it is to estimate when a space object will re-enter. The module’s robust design—built to withstand Venus’s intense conditions—likely enabled it to survive reentry, but atmospheric variability, object orientation, and solar activity complicated tracking efforts.
Experts suggest Kosmos-482’s descent illustrates the need for improved reentry models. “Even a small deviation can translate into thousands of kilometres on Earth’s surface,” noted Aerospace Corporation’s Marlon Sorge. The “oddball” shape of the lander and its ability to possibly skip across atmospheric layers further blurred precise modelling.
Some scientists, like Pavel Shubin, believe the capsule could still be afloat, while others argue it may have sunk beyond recovery. With reentry predictions still confounded by “unhelpful physics” and data gaps, Kosmos-482 serves as a reminder that better tools and open-source collaboration, like TU Delft’s Tudat, may be crucial to future space traffic safety and planetary defence.
For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who’sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike