Chang'e-4 Spotted In A Lunar Crater By NASA Moon Orbiter

Earlier this year, China’s Chang’e-4 successfully landed on the far side of the Moon, and now, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of NASA managed to snap a photo of China’s Moon lander while it was hanging out on the other side of the Moon.

The Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) launched the Chang’e-4, which landed on the Moon on January 3, in the Von Kármán crater. The image was captured on January 30 by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Mark Robinson writes for LRO Camera site of Arizona State University that when approaching the Von Kármán crater from the east, LRO rolled 70 degrees westwards so it could capture this amazing view looking across the floor to the wall in the west.

As can be seen in the picture, the lander looks just like a tiny bright spot on the Moon surface despite its size of a car. In early January, the Chang’e-4 released the lunar rover Jade Rabbit 2, but the small rover cannot be spotted in the picture.

Anyway, the following image can give you a closer look at the Change’e-4 lander, which is the bright spot between the two arrows.

According to an announcement from NASA in the middle of January, the space agency had a discussion with CNSA on observing the plume generated during the Chang’e-4’s landing. The aim of the observation was to gain further understanding of how dust gets kicked up when a spacecraft is landing.

The Chang’e-4 is the world’s first spacecraft to land on the other side of the Moon, also known as the dark side although it still gets light from the Sun. Both the lander and the rover use solar energy.

China has launched the Chang’e-4 to learn more about the side of the Moon that has never faced Earth before. The country also made an attempt to grow plants on the planet, but that could not last long.

2019 has just started and China is already preparing another space mission with the aim to bring back samples from the moon.