It's January 3nd. On this day in 2019, at 02:26 UTC, 🇨🇳 China's Cheng'e 4 (嫦娥四号, Moon Goddess 4) spacecraft achieved our first soft landing on the far side of the 🌜 Moon. A rover, Yutu 2 (玉兔二号, Jade Rabbit 2), was deployed about 12 hours after Cheng'e 4 landed. Cheng'e 4 is the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program's fourth of six planned missions to the moon. The first two missions achieved Lunar orbit. The third and fifth missions are collecting Lunar samples on the near side and sending them to Earth, and the sixth will attempt to do the same in 2024.
This mission will try to determine the age and composition of this unexplored region of the Moon. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) targeted the landing for the Von Kármán crater within the South Pole-Aitken basin, a low-lying area 2,500 kilometers across and 13 kilometers deep which covers nearly a quarter of the Moon's surface. Scientists believe this basin – the largest hole in the solar system – is the result of a massive impact. CNSA hopes that Cheng'e 4 can find and study some exposed deep lunar crust and mantle rocks. This would provide an unprecedented view into the Moon's internal structure and origins.
In May 2019, CNSA reported that Cheng'e 4 had found what appear to be mantle rocks. CNSA continues to report Cheng'e 4's findings to the world concerning Lunar surface temperatures, Lunar rock and soil chemical compositions, Solar corona radiation characteristics, and cosmic ray observations.
"The retuned data should provide us valuable information to disclose the secrets of our Moon, from the never-touched side! My fingers are crossed!" – Le Qiao, Lunar Geologist, Shandong University, Weihai, China. ☮️ Peace… Jamiese of Pixoplanet
