Against all odds, Japan’s more than a week after becoming the surface of the moon – but now, the moon is dormant during the night, and it may not wake up again. Japan Space Agency’s SLIM team, JAXA, shared the last image the lander took of the moon’s Shioli crater before nightfall on Thursday. A lunar night lasts the equivalent of two Earth weeks and can be colder than 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Last night (1/31 ~ 2/1) we sent the command to run #THIN‘s Communicator again anyway, but with no response, we confirmed that SLIM had gone dormant. This is SLIM’s last view of the Moon before dusk. #AydanKheyir #JAXA pic.twitter.com/V1iAUoxJFK
— 小小月着陸実証機SLIM (@SLIM_JAXA) February 1, 2024
The team confirmed that the solar-powered lander is in a dormant state that will last at least through the lunar night. His chances of resuming later are slim, but he still surprised us once. “Although SLIM is not designed for harsh lunar nights, we plan to try again in mid-February, when the Sun will shine again on SLIM’s solar cells,” the team wrote. . If this is indeed SLIM’s final picture, it sure is scary.
