A mysterious silver object has been orbiting the Moon for 15 years. What is it?

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Friday (Apr 5) released images of a mysterious silver surfboard-shaped objectwhich was orbiting the Moon.

The identity of the object, which was captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) last month, has now been revealed. LRO has been circling and studying the Moon for 15 years.

The curious souls might think it's an Unidentified flying object (UFO), but it's not.

NASA revealed that LRO last month captured several images of Korea Aerospace Research Institute's Danuri lunar orbiter, which may appear to be mysterious unless explained.

NASA said that the two spacecraft zipped past each other in opposite directions between March 5 and 6, 2024. Both spacecraft were travelling in nearly parallel orbits.

Danuri is Korea's first spacecraft on the Moon and has been in lunar orbit since December 2022.

NASA said in its reports that the LRO operations team at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland needed "exquisite timing" in pointing LROC to the right place at the right time to catch a glimpse of Danuri.

The task, however, was not easy because of the fast relative velocities between the two spacecraft, which is about 11,500 kilometres per hour.

The American space agency said that LRO's narrow-angle camera captured the images during three orbits that happened to be close enough to Danuri’s to grab the images.

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LRO was launched in 2009 and has collected crucial data with its seven powerful instruments. It has emerged as an invaluable contribution to the study of the Moon.

"Although LRO's camera exposure time was very short, only 0.338 milliseconds, Danuri still appears smeared to 10 times its size in the opposite direction of travel because of the relative high travel velocities between the two spacecraft," NASA said in its report.

(With inputs from agencies)