Aadhya Khatri - Dec 03, 2019

Shanmuga Subramanian was the first to find hints of the Vikram's debris. NASA later confirmed his finding and gave him credit for the hard work

Shortly after Indian officials made public what happened to its lunar lander Vikram, NASA shared some images showing its crashing spot on the surface of the Moon. From the pictures, we can see that the site of impact looks exactly similar to a dark shadow. Since these images might look puzzled to untrained eyes, the agency has also released animation to help.

Last month, we have finally had an answer on the fate of the Vikram. Due to an issue with the braking system, the lander fell too slowly and crash-landed on the surface of the Moon in early September. The impact was too hard that the Vikram was damaged beyond operation.

NASA’s images show the impact site as well as the field of debris surrounding it. The blue dots show the soil of the place was disturbed by the fall, while the green ones mark the locations of the debris of the spacecraft.

Commenting on the Vikram, NASA said that while the lander did not survive to finish the task it was sent to the Moon to do; getting this close to the lunar surface had already been an excellent achievement already.

According to NASA, the agency’s team of Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera made public a mosaic took on the 17th of September, which has encouraged the public to study the mosaic to find any hint that can reveal where the Vikram crashed. Shanmuga Subramanian was the first to find one.

After the finding, the team was informed of it, and later, they confirmed its accuracy. Since it was challenging to find the debris, NASA had made things a bit easier by altering the lighting so that the changes in the landscape are highlighted.