A week after launching from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far east, Luna-25 is already in a lunar orbit and Russian space agency Roscosmos has shared a detailed image of the lunar surface taken by the mission. Roscosmos shared the image in a Telegram post on Thursday. In the image, the Zeeman crater on near the south pole of the Moon on the far side is visible. The crater is not visible from Earth but it is of great interest to researchers according to the space agency. Interestingly, the first image of the far side of the Moon was taken by the Soviet Luna-3 mission, which could be thought of as a distant predecessor to the Luna-25 mission. The orbiter from #ISRO’s failed #Chandrayaan2 landing mission of September 2019 is a crucial component in the #Chandrayaan3 — IE Science (@iexpressscience) August 18, 2023 Invisible from Earth, the Zeeman crater is a unique object on the lunar surface and is of great interest to researchers - the height of the shaft surrounding it reaches 8 kilometers above the surface of a relatively flat bottom. The crater contains a mountain that is nearly 7,570 metres high, rivalling some of the biggest mountains on our planet. Luna-25 launched on August 11 and it is the country’s first since 1976, when the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission returned lunar soil samples back to Earth. Luna-25 marks Russia’s long-delayed return to lunar exploration. Despite launching nearly a month after India’s Chandrayaan-3, the Russian mission could beat the former to become the first to land on the lunar south pole, as early as August 21. This is because Luna-25 is taking a more direct trajectory to the Moon than Chandrayaan-3. The Russian mission had shared its first images taken from space earlier this week.