This was the picture I couldn't post yesterday when Mastodon.social had the collywobbles.

At top left is a context map showing two areas apparently containing crashed Luna 5 hardware. Top right: the location of a large dust cloud apparently photographed - and reported to be the impact site of Luna 5's upper stage rocket. Bottom, 2 maps zooming in on the area where Luna 5 itself apparently crashed.

Luna 6 was supposed to land but missed the Moon by a wide margin.

#maps #moon #Luna5

Yes, a different object. You can read more about it here:

https://www.alpo-astronomy.org/content/Lunar/Publications/TLO/2023/tlo202307.pdf

(see pages 73-75).

I hope you can see from this that there are plenty of things we still don't know about these Soviet missions.

I'm trying to attach a picture but getting error messages. I will do it tomorrow.
#moon #Luna5

NSSDCA says this:

"... the astronomical observatory at Rodeswisch in Germany took photographs of the area which showed a cloud of dust. The cloud was 80 km by 203 km in extent at 19:15:24.7 UT and the center was estimated at 31 S, 8 E."

OK, first - 8 east? The other southern sites were about 8 west. This is not about confusing 2 places, it's about confusing old and new longitudes for the same place. East and west were switched in 1960 so they corresponded to our east and west.

#moon #Luna5

I have made a big deal about this confusion over the location of the Luna 5 impact. It is going to be a familar story. We don't know where Luna 7 crashed, or Luna 15. You can find coordinates... but more than 1 set, so it doesn't help very much.

What about this 30 south location for Luna 5? How can it be so far off the other location? Turns out it's not the same object, though many accounts don't explain that. #moon #Luna5

There seems to be a reasonable case for saying the impact was near the equator and about 25 west. This Soviet era map shows the site. It's south up. At top left is a red symbol with '5' in it, near the crater Lansberg. Other Soviet landers are at lower right (9 and 13 succeeded). At top centre is a blue circle with a 'C' - that's Surveyor 1.

Somewhere around that point should be the Luna 5 site. But what about those points around 30 south? The mystery continues tomorrow. #maps #moon #Luna5