'1st Anniversary of Launch' Danuri Reveals Amazing Details of the Moon's Surface

Ministry of Science and ICT-KARI, Commemoration Ceremony and Symposium on the 7th Afternoon

The government has unveiled a large collection of astonishing images of the Moon observed so far to mark the first anniversary of the launch of South Korea's first lunar exploration orbiter, 'Danuri'.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) held a 'Danuri Launch 1st Anniversary Ceremony and Space Exploration Symposium' on the afternoon of the 7th at KARI headquarters in the Daedeok Research Complex, Daejeon.

Danuri was launched on August 5th last year at 8:08 a.m. from the U.S. Space Force base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. After a 145-day Earth-Moon transit, it successfully entered the lunar mission orbit on December 27, 2022. Since February 4 of this year, it has begun normal mission operations, conducting scientific and technological missions such as searching for lunar landing candidate sites, lunar scientific research, and verifying space internet technology with six onboard instruments.

In particular, at the ceremony, high-resolution camera images were revealed, including those of Hermite-A Crater, where a large amount of ice is expected to exist, and Amundsen Crater, which has the Artemis III manned exploration landing candidate site on the crater boundary. Additional achievements were also disclosed, such as images of the Moon's representative magnetic anomaly region, Reiner Gamma Swirl (captured by the wide-field polarization camera), a preliminary thorium elemental map created from gamma-ray spectrometer data, and photos of the permanently shadowed region at the lunar south pole, Sverdrup Crater (captured by NASA's ShadowCam).

Originally, Danuri's official mission period was until the end of this year, but thanks to fuel savings, it will continue its lunar observation mission in orbit until December 2025.

Below are the Danuri launch 1st anniversary commemorative photos released by KARI.

A photo taken by Danuri on April 5th using the wide-field polarization camera capturing the Lyman gamma swirl. Photo by Korea Aerospace Research Institute

Photo taken by Danuri's shadow cam of the Sveðrup crater on February 16, 2023. Photo by Korea Aerospace Research Institute

Hermite-A crater photographed by Danuri with a high-resolution camera on July 9, 2023. Photo by Korea Aerospace Research Institute

Initial map of thorium elements analyzed by Danuri's gamma-ray spectrometer. Photo by Korea Aerospace Research Institute

Initial Map of Thorium Elements Analyzed by the Danuri Gamma-Ray Spectrometer

Danuri Gamma-ray Spectrometer Observation Data

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