Just as NASA launched its new Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft the moon, a frog was sent flying into the air from the impact of the blast, accidentally "photobombing" a picture taken of the launch, the Huffington Post reports.
The rocket launch took place at Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia, which borders the Wallops Island National Wildlife Refuge. According to an Astronomy professor, the little frog may have survived his high-flying adventure despite NASA's less optimistic reports. Either way, the photo did provide a good way for her class to segue into a math lesson.
"The media seems awfully keen to write off the frog," Deborah Levine, an adjunct faculty member in Astronomy at Glendale Community College in California, wrote in to the Huffington Post. "I decided this was a good example of the relationship between angular size and distance for my intro to Astronomy class. With a back of the envelope calculation, I don't see the frog being any closer to the launch pad than 1/10 the distance from the camera to the launchpad, and possibly no closer than 1/100th that distance. I don't know how far from the pad the camera was, but I'd guess a kilometer or so. So unless that's Frogzilla, I think there is reason to be optimistic about his survival."
In the now-viral photo taken by Chris Perry, the unlucky frog can be been with his arms and legs splayed out to the sides, his silhouette visible against a background of smoke and flames.
"We got back to the office after the launch at 12:30 a.m. and we're all pretty amused and amazed," Perry told ABC News. "It was also sad to see a frog go like that. As much fire as that rocket is putting out, I have to imagine it got injured. I'm guessing it was about 150 feet away from the Minotaur rocket, give or take a few. Lots of flies out there that evening, so I'm sure our frog (or toad) had a nice feast."
"We've never seen this at Wallops before. I've been here 30 years," Keith Koehler of the Wallops Flight Facility told ABC News, explaining that hundreds of frogs live in the marshlands surrounding the launch pad.
"The photo team confirms the frog is real and was captured in a single frame by one of the remote cameras used to photograph the launch," NASA said, adding that "the condition of the frog, however, is uncertain."
As for the LADEE spacecraft, its mission is to investigate lunar dust and the atmosphere on the moon over its month-long journey.
Back in 2009, a bat known as "Space Bat" was photographed clinging to the tank of the Space Shuttle Discovery. NASA consulted experts at the time, who ruled it was likely a free tail bat that likely had a broken left wing and some problem with its right shoulder or wrist," sadly adding that "the animal likely perished quickly during Discovery's climb into orbit."
Click here to see a high quality photo, taken by Chris Perry, of the frog that accidentally "photobombed" NASA's latest space rocket launch.
