Rover Lands on the Far Side of the Moon
The dark side of the moon.
Up until now, our knowledge of the celestial object’s far side could be summed up with:
- It’s not actually dark
- It’s the far side
- There’s a marvelous album named after it
But not anymore! As of January 3rd, the Chinese probe Chang’e-4 is parked on the moon’s mysterious far side, bringing us pictures of unexplored terrain. The spacecraft is unmanned, and will use technology to explore the moon’s geology.
The rover was named after the Chinese moon goddess, Chang’e, from an ancient legend. This legend has thousands of variations, but the basics are the same. The story tells of a king, Houyi. And his wife, Chang’e. The king obtains a potion of immortality, and either wishes to become immortal himself or decides to give it to Chang’e, depending on the version of the story. Chang’e drinks it, though the reason why also varies from storyteller to storyteller. Some say it was to prevent the corrupt king from ruling forever, while others say it was to keep it away from a villian. Nonetheless, Chang’e is spirited up to the moon after drinking the potion and becomes the new moon goddess.
So why do we care about the rover at all?
Well, while there have been numerous spacecrafts landed on the front face of the moon, none have made a successful landing on the far side of the moon before. Several have crashed there, either because of system failures or because they finished a mission. This satellite was able to fly in orbit around the moon before lowering itself down to the surface to make a successful landing. Below is a picture of all the successful moon landings so far, with the newest addition.
One of Chang’e-4’s goals is to explore the Aitken Basin. The Aitken Basin marks the area where an object collided with the moon, leaving a large crater that exposes the moon’s crust, and possibly even the mantle. If the Chang’e-4 can find this basin, it will be able to uncover new information on the moon’s composition and structure. The rover will also be taking samples to compare with previous findings. All information will be relayed through the Queqiao relay satellite, as the moon is blocking direct transmission back to Earth.
