China achieves historic first moon far side photography: China has shown that it is one of the major space powers.
The Asian giant has just achieved a historic first landing its probe Chang'e 4 on the far side of the moon - the hemisphere of the moon which is permanently turned back to the Earth - reports the website Quartz.
The United States and Russia only landed on the visible side of the moon, and the last time was in 1976, with the Soviet mission Luna.
China achieves historic first moon far side photography
The Chinese probe Chang'e 4, which took off on December 8, 2018 from the Xichang Space Center (China), landed on Thursday, January 3, 2019 on the crater Von Karman, located in the South Pole-Aitken basin of the the hidden side of the moon, a huge depression of 2500 km in diameter, said the agency China News, adding that it is a "new chapter in human lunar exploration."
This lunar mission is to study the differences in composition and relief of the hidden face of the Moon, to examine the effects of lunar gravity on potato seeds, Arabidopsis flowers, and cocoons of silkworms. and to measure the radiation of the neutral atoms.
China hopes to achieve its mission with the 140 kg exploration rover.
The Asian country has great ambitions on the Moon: according to a video broadcast by the Chinese Space Agency last April, he dreams of a lunar palace where scientists could live and conduct their research. The Chinese space agency has not given an exact date for its project, but we know that the ideal site could be the south pole of the Moon, which could shelter water and be sufficiently exposed to the sun.
RELATED: China unveiled the first panoramic photo of the hidden face of the Moon
After successfully landing its Chang'e 4 probe on the far side of the moon - a historic first - China has unveiled the first panoramic photograph of the Moon's hemisphere that is permanently backed to the Earth. , reports Century Digital.
In this panoramic view, taken with the camera installed on the Chang'e 4 probe, you can see lunar dust on the ground and craters.
China now has a small wheeled remote robot called Yutu-2 (Jade Bunny 2), located on the lunar surface to conduct analysis.
In a statement, the Chinese space agency CNSA said that its spacecraft - Chang'e-4, the Jade Bunny 2 and Queqiao satellite responsible for returning information to Earth - "are in a stable state and all programs are proceeding as planned. "
The mission will thus "approach the stage of scientific exploration", adds the CNSA.
The aim of the Chinese Lunar Mission is to study the differences in composition and relief of the dark side of the Moon, to examine the effects of lunar gravity on potato seeds, Arabidopsis flowers, and cocoons of silkworms and measure the radiation of neutral atoms.