ISRO To Share The First Image Of The Lunar Surface From The Chandrayaan 2 Mission

ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) has just made public an image of the lightened up surface of the Moon, which is captured by the IIRS (short for Imaging Infrared Spectrometer payload).

ISRO also announced that spectroscopic studies were now being conducted on the Earth’s only natural satellite.

The image was shared on Twitter, the agency said that with the IIRS, the Moon surface's reflected sunlight would be measured in contiguous and narrow spectral channels.

One of the main targets of the experiment and the payload is to look into how the Moon was created and its development over the years. To do so, it scans and maps the lunar surface’s mineral composition. The instrument will rely on reflected solar spectrum’s signatures for material determination.

The image shows the northern hemisphere of the Moon, and we can see some craters, such as Stebbins, Sommerfield, and Kirkwood.

According to ISRO, studies have confirmed that IIRS could measure the differences of the reflected radiation from the Sun that have come in contact with the Moon’s various types of surfaces and then bounced back. Some of the landscapes are crater floors, craters’ central peaks, and craters’ inner rims.

This image was released after the ISRO kept the progress of the Chandrayaan 2 mission undercover. It also serves as the first scientific data to be made public. Taken by the OHRC (Orbiter's High-Resolution Camera) from the height of more than 100 km, the image shared by ISRO is of the highest resolution we have ever had of the lunar surface.

ISRO has not had any luck to communicate with the Pragyan rover and Vikram lander after they crashed on the Moon in an attempt to touch down on its surface on the 7^th of September.