Chang'e-4 Records Unexpectedly Low Temperatures on Far Side of the Moon
- by Jake Bell
- in Research
- — Feb 2, 2019
Tuesday, surviving their first lunar night after making the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon, said CNSA.
Scientists associated with Center for Lunar Science and Exploration that is part of NASA's Solar System Exploration Institute have found an old piece of rock that could have blasted out of earth and landed on the moon from a lunar sample brought home by astronauts of Apollo 14. The rest mode was necessary due to the frigid nighttime temperatures on the lunar far side, which plunged as low as -310 degrees Fahrenheit.
China's Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec 8 in 2018, landed on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan 3.
We have since taken pictures of the far side with the lunar orbiter, giving humans the first clear look at it in its entirety, but China's Chang'e-4 lander isn't there for sightseeing.
More news: Patterson Ton Adds to Sri Lanka's Agony on High Scoring DayTemperatures on the dark side of the moon, at night, turned out to be colder than expected, the Chinese National Space Agency reported.
Earth's moon is tidally locked to the planet, meaning that the same side of the moon faces us at all times. Previously, the Chinese scientists had no data on exactly how cold it could be. "We still need more careful analysis", Zhang was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
China has launched a ground-breaking mission to land a spacecraft on the largely unexplored far side of the moon, demonstrating its growing ambitions as a space power to rival Russian Federation, the European Union and the US.
"It was a success, but Chang'e-3 was designed according to foreign temperature data", said Zhang.
More news: Varadkar and Coveney set for crunch talks with European Union leadersThough long-time low temperature provided a severe survival environment, the two devices had safely withstood their first lunar night using a sustainable isotopic heating supply.
Both rover and lander carry radioisotope heat sources to prevent them from freezing entirely during the long lunar nights.
Used for the first time in a Chinese spacecraft, the isotope thermoelectric generation technology to transform heat into power on Chang'e-4 is a prototype for future deep-space exploration, said Sun Zezhou, chief designer of the Chang'e-4 probe from CAST.
The scientific tasks of the Chang'e-4 mission include low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure, and measuring neutron radiation and neutral atoms.
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