NASA Spacecraft Spots Surfboard-shaped Mystery Orbiting the Moon: What Could It Be?

An object circling the moon in the shape of a surfboard was captured by NASA's spacecraft. [Credit: TimesNow]

NASA Spacecraft Spots Surfboard-shaped Mystery Orbiting the Moon: NASA released photos on Friday showing a mysterious surfboard-shaped object near the moon's surface. The photos were taken on March 5 and March 6.

The US space agency has also captured 'multiple images' from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). These pictures show a thin horizontal line resembling the Silver Surfer character's board.

A New York Post report compared the thin horizontal line captured in the images to Silver Surfer's board, which appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

According to the report and Associate Professor Paul Byrne of Washington University in St. Louis, the curious object is neither a fictional character nor a UFO.

NASA has claimed that the image of Danuri, which orbits the moon since December 2022, is distorted. "Although LRO’s camera exposure time was very short, only 0.338 milliseconds, Danuri still appears smeared to 10 times its size in the opposite direction of travel because of the relative high travel velocities between the two spacecraft."

As a result of the fast relative velocities (>3.2 kilometers per second), LRO had to point to the right place at the right time to get a picture of Danuri, NASA said. Due to the fast relative velocities, LRO needed to point it in the right direction at the right time.

Check Out: Solar Eclipse 2024: NASA And Elon Musk Offer Glimpse Of Phenomenon From Space And Earth Orbit

According to NASA's LROC blog hosted at the University of Arizona, the LROC NAC exposure time was only 0.338 milliseconds.

Danuri was also said to be captured from a distance of three miles, or five kilometers, by the first image, according to the US Space Agency.

The third photograph was also 'reoriented' to see the Korean spacecraft five miles below, and a duplicate image was stretched and pixels containing the Danuri 'unsmeared' so that it was clearer to see the spacecraft.

It is also due to LRO's camera's short exposure time that the Korean spacecraft appears as a smear and is reduced to 10 times its original size.

Since December 2022, Danuri's image has been distorted due to the extremely fast relative velocities between Danuri and the LRO.

It's South Korea's first moon mission, and Nasa's LRO orbits the moon for 15 years.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's LRO operations team enabled the LROC observations, praising them for pinpointing their camera at the right time and place.

Check Out: What To Expect During The Total Solar Eclipse 2024?