It's been just over a year since the Chinese missions Chang'e 4 and Yutu 2 landed on the dark side of the moon. All this time, they have been studying the von Karman crater and sharing the results via the Queqiao relay satellite, which sends signals to Earth.
As part of the mission, the lander and the lunar rover were constantly photographed. The Chinese lunar exploration program has just released a new batch of data from mission instruments, after accumulating an image library with thousands of files.
In addition to radar and infrared spectrometry data, the release includes high-resolution images of the lunar surface from the Chang'e 4 landing camera as well as the Yutu 2 panoramic camera.
That means there's a Right Pancam. Which means … ANAGLYPHS (full size here – https://t.co/N6xiBSa8EI) pic.twitter.com/7jC2CQRRXR
– Doug Ellison (@doug_ellison) January 4, 2020
The pictures were taken over 12 lunar days. Because of the way the moon rotates, its day-night cycle lasts just over 29 days; A lunar day is about two weeks Earth time, during which the mission is under the constant sunlight needed to run on solar energy. The instruments are then turned off for a two week night.
So far, the rover has traveled a winding path of just over 350 meters through the 180 kilometers wide Von Karman crater, which is part of a much larger, older and poorly understood ancient cosmic collision site called the South Pole-Aitken Basin. It is 2,500 kilometers across – nearly a quarter of the moon.
In fact, the rover is photographing panoramic views and rock formations, documenting the terrain on the previously unexplored dark side of the moon – an area where no other lander has previously existed.
The wealth of data returned by the mission could shed light not only on the history of the moon and this mysterious giant basin, but also on the history of the solar system itself.
The Queqiao repeater satellite is necessary because the Moon blocks electromagnetic radiation. Queqiao is also conducting an experiment to detect low frequency signals from deep space, which cannot easily be done from Earth due to interference from the ionosphere.
The rover and lander have now officially exceeded their planned mission duration of three months and 12 months, respectively; both have just woken up to a new lunar day.
Chang'e 5's next mission is due to begin later this year. It does not head to the dark side like its predecessor. Most likely, it is planned to collect at least 2 kilograms of lunar samples and return them to Earth for study.
If successful, Chang'e 5 will deliver the first lunar samples to Earth since 1976. Hopefully these samples will enable research that will help future manned missions to the moon.
Four pics of Von Kármán crater from a couple thousand images released from the Chang'e-4 rover Yutu-2's PCAM. Thanks to @doug_ellison for the instructions & check out the amazing stuff in his thread (processing, 3D models, panoramas …) https://t.co/Vxoese7Q70 pic.twitter.com/8CouxKgCBQ
– Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) January 5, 2020
You can view some of the images in the data release here, transformed by Twitter user Technique Speciales and edited by Doug Ellison.
If you would like to try your hand at converting and manipulating images yourself, you can find the linked files on the China Moon Exploration Program website.
Sources: Photo: CLEP
