We might have successfully walked on the moon more than half a century ago, but it seems the small orbiting rock has kept plenty of secrets from us along the way.

Now, with several countries and private companies looking to man missions there in the coming years, the excitement is back – and these images sent back from one of those exploratory spacecrafts are pretty cool.

Blue Ghost, a ship funded by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and operated by Firefly Aerospace, took the images on its way to land in the Mare Crisium. Its goal is to deliver scientific and technological instruments to the surface on the Moon’s far side.

The team offered an update on the lower-orbit maneuver.

“The Firefly team completed another lunar orbit maneuver with a 3 minute, 18 second burn at 3:09 am this morning. This maneuver moved the lander from a high elliptical orbit to a much lower elliptical orbit around the Moon. Shortly after the burn, Blue Ghost captured incredible footage of the Moon’s far side, about 120 km above the surface.”

This was thanks to some pretty cool equipment that NASA had stashed on board.

“The objectives of the mission are to investigate heat flow from the lunar interior, plume-surface interactions, crustal electric and magnetic fields. It will also take X-ray images of the Earth’s magnetosphere. Technology tests include regolith sampling, regolith adherence, Global Navigation Satellite System abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and dust mitigation using electrodynamic fields.”

All of this will help them plan the next manned missions to the Moon.

The glow in the images is one of the the most beautiful things.

“Blue Ghost will then capture the lunar sunset on March 16, prviding data on how lunar dust levitates due to solar influences and creates a lunar horizon glow first documented by Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17. Following sunset, Blue Ghost will operate several hours into the lunar night.”

That said, the cool sunset could pose a problem for astronauts in the future.

“In addition, the Moon has no atmosphere and is constantly bombarded by radiation from the Sun that causes the soil to become electrostatically charged. This charge can be so strong that the dust levitates above the lunar surface, making it even more likely to get inside equipment and people’s lungs.”

Gathering more data on the phenomenon is a bonus of the mission, which will accomplish much more than cool photos or doing a drop of essential equipment.

It seems as if the next few years will be exciting for those who have been long wishing for a return to the Moon.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a second giant hole has opened up on the sun’s surface. Here’s what it means.