China’s burgeoning space program yesterday achieved a first: a landing on the so-called dark side of the moon.
Three nations — the US, the former Soviet Union and China — have sent spacecraft to the near side of the moon, but this was the first-ever landing on the far side.
The 10:26am touchdown of the Chang’e 4 spacecraft has “opened up a new chapter in human lunar exploration,” the China National Space Administration said.
Photo: Reuters / China National Space Administration
A photograph taken at 11:40am and sent back by Chang’e 4 showed a small crater and a barren surface that appears to be illuminated by a light from the lunar explorer.
The spacecraft’s name comes from that of a Chinese goddess who, according to legend, has lived on the moon for millennia.
The Chang’e 4’s launch on Dec. 8 has been hailed as one of the nation’s major achievements last year, and China Central Television announced the landing at the top of the noon news.
“On the whole, China’s space technology still lags behind the West, but with the landing on the far side of the moon, we have raced to the front,” said Hou Xiyun (侯錫雲), a professor at Nanjing University’s School of Astronomy and Space Sciences.
“There’s no doubt that our nation will go farther and farther,” he said, adding that China has Mars, Jupiter and asteroids in its sights.
In 2013, Chang’e 3, the predecessor spacecraft to the current mission, made the first moon landing since the former Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976.
The US is the only country that has successfully sent a person to the moon, although China is considering a crewed mission.
For now, China plans to send its Chang’e 5 probe to the moon next year and have it return to Earth with samples — also not done since the Soviet mission in 1976.
The relatively unexplored far side of the moon has a different composition than the near side, where previous missions have landed.
Chang’e 4, a combined lander and rover, is to make astronomical observations, and probe the structure and mineral composition of the terrain above and below the surface.
“The far side of the moon is a rare quiet place that is free from interference from radio signals from Earth,” Xinhua news agency reported mission spokesman Yu Guobin (于國斌) as saying.
“This probe can fill the gap of low-frequency observation in radio astronomy, and will provide important information for studying the origin of stars and nebula evolution,” he said.
China has put a pair of space stations into orbit and plans to launch a Mars rover in the mid-2020s.
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