India's Historic First: Chandrayaan-2 Catches Sun's Fury Hitting the Moon.

This special report focuses on a landmark scientific breakthrough by India's Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter, which has made the first-ever direct observation of a solar coronal mass ejection (CME) impacting the Moon's thin atmosphere. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) confirmed that 'observations from CHACE-2 showed an increase in the total pressure of the dayside lunar exosphere (very thin atmosphere) when the CME impacted the Moon'. The data, captured by the onboard Chandra's Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2) instrument, revealed that the density of neutral atoms in the lunar exosphere increased by more than an order of magnitude. This observation validates long-held theoretical models about space weather's effect on the Moon and provides crucial data for the safety of future lunar missions and potential habitats.