For the first time in 40 years, after the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 rover finally gave up in 1973, humanity once again has a rover exploring the surface of the Moon, sending back awesome photos of Earth -- the Blue Marble -- hanging in space, and of the lunar surface. Rather surprisingly (or not, depending on your point of view), this rover isn't Russian or American, either. Yes, the first country to perform a soft landing on the Moon in almost 40 years is none other than China, with its Chang'e 3 lander and Yutu rover.
China's Chang'e 3 mission lifted off December 1 2013, maneuvered into lunar orbit on December 6, and landed on the surface of the Moon on December 14. The landing is notable because it was a soft landing -- thrusters were used to lower the spacecraft to within four meters (13 feet) of the Moon's surface, and then cut off. Every other landing since 1976 has been a hard landing (probes usually free fall to the surface, rather than being buffered by a powered descent). Soft landings are much harder to pull off, but the fragility of large rovers makes them necessary. (Curiosity's soft landing on Mars was probably NASA's greatest achievement in recent history.) This successful soft landing shows that China is not to be trifled with when it comes to space exploration.
Earth, as seen from the Chang'e 3 lander on the Moon. If you just about squint, maybe that's Africa you can make out?
After landing, Chang'e (the goddess of the Moon in Chinese mythology) deposited Yutu (the goddess's pet jade rabbit). Yutu is a medium-sized rover (140 kilos, 310 lbs) that's similar in size and appearance to NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. It carries the usual array of cameras and spectrometers for geological analysis of lunar rock samples. It has a robotic arm for positioning one its spectrometers near rock samples, and there are sensors that prevent the rover from bumping into obstacles. The most exciting instrument is Yutu's ground-penetrating radar (GPR), which allows for the first ever direct measurement of the depth and structure of the lunar surface down to 30 meters (98 feet). Beyond that, because China is rather secretive with its space plans, we don't know a whole lot about Yutu. Who even knows if China will share any scientific data that it gleans from the Chang'e 3 mission.
Anyway, for now, we at least have a bunch of pretty photos taken by Chang'e 3 and Yutu from the surface of the Moon. The most important photo is probably the one near the top of story, which shows the Earth on Christmas Day -- a view of the Earth that we haven't seen since the Apollo missions of the '70s. The one below is also of the Earth's plasmasphere, as seen by Chang'e 3's extreme ultraviolet camera. (See: China’s problem with smog, captured by NASA’s Terra satellite.)
This photo is of the Chang'e 3 lander, taken by the Yutu rover after it had disembarked from the mothership. (If you've ever wondered why spacecraft are covered in so much gold foil(Opens in a new window), our sister site Geek.com has got you covered.)
The Yutu rover's first movements were driving a semi-circle around the lander, taking photos as it went.
Finally, happy that all systems are nominal, Yutu heads off into the sunset.
