Defying the odds, Japan's SLIM lander survives 2nd night on the moon

SLIM's not dead yet.

The SLIM spacecraft, Japan's first-ever successful moon lander, has survived the long, cold lunar night for the second time.

Mission team members announced the news via X on Wednesday (March 27), in a post that also featured a photo newly snapped by the lander's navigation camera.

SLIM, whose name is short for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon," launched last September and landed on Jan. 19, making Japan just the fifth nation to pull off a soft lunar touchdown. (The other four are the Soviet Union, the United States, China and India.)

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The solar-powered SLIM landed on its nose that day, a less-than-optimal orientation for harvesting sunlight. The 440-pound (200 kilograms) probe went dark shortly thereafter but then woke up on Jan. 28 and began gathering data.

The mission team put SLIM into hibernation a few days later ahead of the two-week-long lunar night, during which surface temperatures at its locale dropped to around minus 208 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 130 degrees Celsius).