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From: TT
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Photo: CNSA / New China / AP / TT
Photograph taken with Chang’e-5’s panoramic camera, which distorts perspective to get more of the scenery around the lander in the “Ocean of Storms.”
The Chinese probe Chang’e-5 has been working unexpectedly fast in the lava plain of the Stormarnas ocean on the moon. A full Earth day before the set time, all mineral samples are collected, announces the space agency CNSA.
Thus, the next risky part of China’s prestigious project on the moon is carried out: for the landing craft to take off again, connect to the orbiting spacecraft, and send the samples back to Earth.
If successful, China will join the exclusive club of nations that have rescued and brought material from the moon here, a society that includes only the United States and the then Soviet Union since the expeditions of the 1960s and 1970s.
Chang’e-5, named after the Chinese goddess of the moon, landed in the previously unexplored area of the Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”) on the moon on Tuesday.
China has posted videos of the landing, released by Western industry journalists, showing the probe flies flat, slows down and adjusts its position before fading into the gravel.
Experts have described the simple act of landing and taking off in a controlled manner on the moon as extra difficult challenges for those countries that want to call themselves space powers. Many have tried and many have failed, including the United States and the Soviet Union at first, and in recent years, among others, India and Israel.
If Chang’e-5 manages to withdraw and land in Inner Mongolia in mid-December, it will be the first time since 1976 that humanity has received minerals from the moon. These samples are also considered very interesting because they come from a part of the lunar surface not previously visited.
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