{"id":119,"date":"2025-11-03T09:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T14:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/?page_id=119"},"modified":"2025-11-04T06:52:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T11:52:35","slug":"lexi","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/scientific-progress\/lexi\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Ground\u2014on the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Above: A photo from the surface of the moon, where the BU-built <strong>LEXI telescope<\/strong> enables the study of Earth\u2019s magnetic forces. Courtesy of Firefly Aerospace<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>In a historic first for the University, the LEXI telescope imaged Earth\u2019s magnetic shield from the lunar surface<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was one small step for Boston University. And one giant leap for our understanding of the Earth\u2019s magnetic shield.<\/p>\n<p>In the early hours of Sunday, March 2, 2025, a Boston University research team gathered at the College of Engineering for a historic moment: the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/nasa-lands-on-moon-with-bu-telescope\/\">first-ever BU-built device was landing on another planetary body<\/a>. The Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) had hitched a ride aboard NASA\u2019s <em>Blue Ghost<\/em> Mission 1 to the moon.<\/p>\n<p>Funded by the national space agency in 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/bu-nasa-partnership-sends-x-ray-imaging-satellite-to-the-moon\/\">LEXI was years in the making<\/a>, designed to capture X-ray emissions created when solar particles collide with atoms in Earth\u2019s outermost atmosphere. The images would offer a first-of-its-kind look at the planet\u2019s magnetic shield, our key defense against space radiation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/the-moon-landing-that-made-bu-history\/\">Once the mission touched down<\/a> on a flat region called Mare Crisium, LEXI was powered up. Back on Earth, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/profile\/brian-walsh-ph-d\/\"><strong>Brian Walsh<\/strong><\/a> (GRS\u201909,\u201911), LEXI\u2019s lead scientist, and his team opened the telescope\u2019s front latch, exposing its lenses to space and breathing a sigh of relief that it had survived the trip intact.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLEXI [imaged], for the first time, the X-ray signature to monitor the boundary of Earth\u2019s magnetic field,\u201d Walsh says, and how it deflects the constant flow of solar wind and high-speed charged particles from the sun.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cLexi [imaged], for the first time, the boundary of Earth\u2019s magnetic field.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But time was of the essence. BU scientists worked around the clock, analyzing real-time data to ensure the instrument functioned properly. They had just one week before the onset of the moon\u2019s nightfall when temperatures plunged to -208\u00b0F, permanently disabling the lander and all its experiments.<\/p>\n<p>LEXI\u2019s mission may have been brief, but its insights could help protect our planet for decades to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Above: A photo from the surface of the moon, where the BU-built LEXI telescope enables the study of Earth\u2019s magnetic forces. Courtesy of Firefly Aerospace In a historic first for the University, the LEXI telescope imaged Earth\u2019s magnetic shield from the lunar surface It was one small step for Boston University. And one giant leap [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1859,"featured_media":0,"parent":68,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/no-sidebars.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1859"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/119\/revisions\/233"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}