Chang'e-4 landing: Chinese spacecraft sends first ever pictures back to Earth from far side of moon
A Chinese spacecraft has sent the first ever pictures back to Earth from the far side of the moon, after also becoming the first probe to make a successful landing there.
The Chang'e-4 lunar probe touched down on Thursday, China's space agency said, hailing the event as a historic first in the country's space programme.
The spacecraft, launched in December, made the "soft landing" at 2.26am GMT and transmitted the first-ever "close range" image of the dark side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said.
The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so its far side - or "dark side" - is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none have landed on it.
The landing "lifted the mysterious veil" of the far side of the moon and "opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration", the agency said in a statement on its website, which included a wide-angle colour picture of a crater from the moon's surface.
The probe, which has a lander and a rover, touched down at a targeted area near the moon's south pole in the Von Karman Crater after entering the moon's orbit in mid-December.
The tasks of the Chang'e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform and mineral makeup, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment of its far side.
In a tweet, Nasa's administrator, Jim Bridenstine, praised China for its "impressive accomplishment".
"Congratulations to China’s Chang’e-4 team for what appears to be a successful landing on the far side of the Moon. This is a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment!"
The landing is a milestone for China in its race to catch up with Russia and the US and become a major space power by 2030. Beijing plans to launch construction of its own manned space station next year.
While China has insisted its ambitions are purely peaceful, the US Defense Department has accused it of pursuing activities aiming to prevent other nations from using space-based assets during a crisis.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8708951.html
BBC just been talking about a chinese media blackout about this prior to the landing, claiming they were scared of failure. No, bbc goon, they didn't know what they were going to find there. The probe will be taken out soon as soon as it gets near to the bases there