last month, the China National Space Administration released all of the images from their recent moon landing to the public. There are now hundreds and hundreds of never-before-seen true color, high definition photos of the lunar surface available for download.

China set out to prove that, it too, like powerful nations like the US and Russia, can successfully soft land on the moon, the China National Space Administration launched Chang’e in 2015, following up two other spacecrafts of the same name which, in contrast, were orbiters. Aside from the soft landing, Chang’e 3’s mission was to bring the Yutu rover to the moon safe and sound.

While it did indeed successfully do that, Yutu’s story didn’t exactly have a happy ending. The rover was equipped with your standard scientific and sensor hardware, like radar, x-ray, visible and near-infrared spectrometers, and, of course, cameras. Just a year after it landed, however, Yutu started to have problems moving because the rover was ill-prepared for the moon’s frigid night temperatures. By 2015, it was declared non-operational.



Before it died, however, it was still able to collect data, record images and videos, and send those back to Earth. Which was a good thing, because the album of colored photos of the moon it acquired is simply astounding.

Of course, China’s space dreams don’t end there, but unlike other country’s or even private companies who are betting on Mars, China still has its eyes set on the moon. By 2018, it will attempt to make history by being the first to land on the far, dark side of the moon.



SOURCE

cool

woww, nice one.Naija where we dey ? we will get there one DAY!!!! #GodBlessNigeria

I wanna live on the moon

Nubian113:
I wanna live on the moon