China's Probe Chang'e 4 Lands on Far Side of Moon

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Published on Jan 3, 2019


Going where no nation has gone before, today China successfully landed a rover on the farside of the Moon. The Chang'e 4 lunar probe touched down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a huge impact crater, at 10 26 am Beijing time on Jan. 3rd. China's rover will be the first to explore a farside crater, probing it with ground-penetrating radar and measuring its mineral composition with an infrared spectrometer. If water is present, the rover might find it. http://spaceweather.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2...

China’s Chang’e-4 lands on moon’s far side

By Deborah Byrd in Space | January 3, 2019
China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft set down last night, according to clocks in the Americas. It’s a historic event, the first time a spacecraft has landed on the side of the moon we cannot see.



More space history this week, besides the smallest space object ever orbited, and the most distant object yet visited. Last night, according to clocks in the Americas – January 3, 2019, at 02:26 UTC (10:26 a.m. Beijing time; January 2 at 10:26 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast) – China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft successfully landed on the moon’s far side.
Best New Year’s gift ever! EarthSky moon calendar for 2019
Chinese state media announced the event. The spacecraft landed in Von Kármán crater, located on the lunar far side within the South Pole-Aitken basin. Jason Davis at the Planetary Society wrote:

Chang’e-4 itself launched on December 8, 2018. It entered lunar orbit four days later, where mission controllers spent 22 days testing the spacecraft’s systems, waiting for the sun to rise at the landing site. [On January 2-3, 2019] Chang’e-4 successfully de-orbited and landed.

Scientists say Chang’e-4’s landing site is an area where an ancient impact by space debris pounded the moon long ago, possibly exposing some of the lunar mantle, the layer beneath its crust. So it’s an interesting region geologically. Chinese scientists hope to learn more about the early history of our moon (and by extension the Earth and rest of the solar system) by studying this region via Chang’e-4.
The spacecraft is a combination lander-rover. At this writing, there’s no word that the rover has been deployed, but that’s expected soon. Stay tuned!

MORE HERE: https://earthsky.org/space/china-change-4-spacecraft-landing-moon-far-side?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=2c1a2b05ef-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-2c1a2b05ef-393775709

Thanks to: https://earthsky.org