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From: TT
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Photo: CNSA / AP / TT
Chang’e 5 photographs parts of his own shadow on the lunar surface. Image from the Chinese space agency CNSA.
China’s Chang’e-5 probe has pierced the lunar surface and is now in the process of “collecting soil samples as planned.” The probe has less than two weeks before the deadly lunar night.
The Chinese space agency CNSA announced after the landing on Tuesday that the first phases of the work, including drilling holes in the lunar surface, went well.
Chang’e-5, named after the Chinese goddess of the moon, is tasked with bringing lunar material back to Earth. The purpose is to learn more about the origin of the moon and volcanic activity.
No similar mission has been carried out since the US and Soviet lunar missions in the 1960s and 1970s, most recently the Soviet Luna 24 in 1976. And the Chinese probe has landed in the hitherto unexplored lava plain Oceanus Procellarum ( “Ocean of storms”).
There he will collect about two kilos of material, reports the journal Nature. Samples should be taken partly from the soil surface and partly from the two meter deep hole the probe has drilled.
Thomas Zurbuchen, an expert with the US space agency Nasa, congratulates China on the country’s success with the landing, an infamous challenging challenge in space circles.
“This is not an easy task,” he tweets. “When the collected samples return to land, we hope everyone can benefit from studies of this invaluable cargo.
The plan is for Chang’e-5 to work on the lunar surface for a couple of days. In practice, the probe takes about two weeks to land. Then the sun sets over the Ocean of Storms and then it gets so brutally cold that the probe breaks if it hasn’t been fired.
The CNSA forecast is for Chang’e-5 to land on Earth again, in Inner Mongolia, on December 16 or 17.
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