China has released hundreds of images of the Moon, taken by its Chang’e 3 lander and its companion rover, Yutu. It’s been 50 years since the first lunar photos were taken by astronauts on NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. China is the third nation to land on the Moon, with the USA and the USSR preceding them.
Even though the Yutu rover’s engine failed after a short time on the lunar surface, the mission’s camera systems have captured hundreds of images.
Thanks to the hard work of Emily Lakdawalla at The Planetary Society, who wrestled with a somewhat cumbersome Chinese website, and stitched some of these images together, we can get a first-hand look at what Chang’e 3 and Yutu were up to.
Here are some of our favourites.
Emily Lakdawalla talks more about the camera systems here, and talks about what other images might be coming soon.
Universe Today reported on the Chinese Moon mission here.
We are all very familiar with the concept of the Earth’s magnetic field. It turns…
Solar Sails are an enigmatic and majestic way to travel across the gulf of space.…
Scientists detected the first long-predicted gravitational wave in 2015, and since then, researchers have been…
Well over 5,000 planets have been found orbiting other star systems. One of the satellites…
Over the last few years I have been renovating my home. Building on Earth seems…
Astrobiologists continue to work towards determining which biosignatures might be best to look for when…