China's Space Program: Yutu & Tianwen Rovers, Chang'e

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone - Nov 27

China Launches World’s First Lunar Return Mission in 40 Years

 

Quote

The Chang’E 5 mission aims to collect lunar soil from a formerly volcanic region and return it to Earth, potentially shedding light on the moon’s “living history” billions of years ago.

 

[Randy W]

from Xinhua on Facebook - Dec 2

Gathering Lunar Samples

https://www.facebook.com/XH.NewsAgency/posts/4555597327844275:0/

Quote

嫦娥五号开启“挖土”模式
记者从国家航天局获悉，北京时间12月2日4时53分，探月工程嫦娥五号着陆器和上升器组合体完成了月球钻取采样及封装。探测器于12月1日23时许成功着陆月面后，开展了太阳翼展开、机构解锁等相关准备工作。目前，着陆器和上升器组合体正按计划进行表取采样。
Ping-opens ′′ Digging ′′ mode.
The reporter learned from the National Space Agency that at 4 pm on December 2 Beijing time, the Lunar Exploration Project, the Lunar Lunar Lunar Lander and the Ascender composite completed the lunar drilling sampling After a successful landing on the moon at 23 on December 1, the probe carried out preparations for the expansion of the solar wing and the unlocking of the mechanism. At present, the lander and ascender compositions are being sampled as planned.

 

[Randy W]

from the Global Times - Dec 4

from the Sixth Tone

China’s Lunar Mission Returning to Earth With Soil, Rock Samples

• The return capsule is expected to land somewhere in Inner Mongolia in less than two weeks.

Quote

The Chang’E 5 ascender blasted off at 11:10 p.m. Thursday, carrying samples it collected from a mountainous region on the near side of the moon, according to China’s National Space Administration.

The ascender must reach lunar orbit and dock with an awaiting vessel, consisting of an orbiter and return capsule, before transferring the soil canister to the return capsule. The vessel will then fly toward Earth before releasing the return capsule once it reaches Earth’s atmosphere.

The orbiter will remain in space, while the return capsule is expected to fall in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region in about two weeks.

 

 

[Randy W]

from CGTN

 

 . . . and SCMP

 

[Randy W]

from the Global Times

 

[Randy W]

from the Global Times on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/globaltimesnews/posts/3830767307004141/

Quote

A New Year on Mars! It is the beginning of a new year for Mars on Monday. Three human probes will arrive on Mars in a few days -- the Hope Mars Rover from UAE, Tianwen-1 Mars Rover from China and Perseverance Rover from the US. Wish them a safe journey! (Photo: More Space )

[Randy W]

from China Xinhua News on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/369959106408139/posts/4953885008015503/

Quote

 

这是中国人拍的火星！

3月4日，国家航天局发布3幅由中国首次火星探测任务“天问一号”探测器拍摄的高清火星影像图，包括2幅全色图像和1幅彩色图像。全色图像由高分辨率相机在距离火星表面约330千米至350千米高度拍摄，分辨率约0.7米。彩色图像由中分辨率相机拍摄，画面为火星北极区域。

 This is Mars taken by the Chinese!
 On March, the National Space Agency released a high-definition
 Mars image taken by China's first Mars exploration mission, "
 Tianquin " probe, including full-color images of the th and th color
 mages. The full-color image is taken by high-resolution cameras
 at about kilometers to kilometers from the surface of Mars, with a
 resolution of about meters. The color image is taken by a
 medium-resolution camera, and the image is of the Arctic region
 of Mars.

[Randy W]

from China Daily on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/191347651290/posts/10159324003536291/

Quote

China has completed feasibility studies of the fourth phase of its lunar exploration program and is expected to build an international lunar research station on the moon's south pole in the future, said the official. #space #luar

China plans to build research station on moon's south pole: chief designer

 . . . and Xinhua, via the Global Times

China plans to build research station on moon's south pole: chief designer

By Xinhua

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

This summer Chinese scientists begin analyzing the first new samples brought back from the moon in 45 years.

from Scientific American on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/22297920245/posts/10165307241605246/

 

Quote

 

China's Chang'e 5 mission, whose return capsule reached Earth last December, collected about 1.7 kilograms of rock and soil from Oceanus Procellarum (the Ocean of Storms) in the northwestern corner of the moon's near side. Orbital imagery suggests the crust there formed about 1.5 billion years ago. But that relative youth is at odds with computer models, which show that a small body like the moon should by then have lost the internal heat remaining from its formation—heat needed to drive volcanic resurfacing and crust development.

Lacking samples from this region, scientists had estimated its surface age by counting impact craters: older surfaces, they reasoned, would bear more such scars than younger ones would. This technique extends to any solid planetary body. Samples that U.S. and Soviet missions collected from the moon's equatorial, northeastern and northern regions between 1969 and 1976 indicate those surfaces are three billion to four billion years old. “The Apollo samples were like ground truth for the crater-counting models,” says Julie Stopar, a geomorphologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. But the earlier samples cover only those older regions: “Anything that happened between roughly three to one billion years ago, we didn't have samples of.”

If the new specimens prove younger than the crater-counting models suggest, “that means our whole chronology of the moon needs correcting. That's pretty fundamental,” says Brown University planetary scientist Jim Head. Other measurements, such as radioactivity, could help explain lunar volcanoes' extended activity. Learning this history is not only key to lunar evolution; it also helps age-date Mercury, Mars, Earth and other bodies.

 

 

[Randy W]

An intriguing cube-shaped object spotted on the far side of the moon has attracted the attention of scientists.

from the Smithsonianmag on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/smithsonianmagazine/posts/10158825842343253

Chinese Rover Spots Weird, Large ‘Cube’ on the Moon
The geometric lunar feature dubbed a ‘mystery hut’ has stumped scientists, who say they plan to take a closer look

Quote

 

China’s Yutu 2 rover captured images of the mystery structure from around 260 feet away while navigating across the Von Kármán crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the moon, reports Popular Science’s Margo Milanowski. Chinese scientists have already rerouted the rover to take a closer look, but it will take a few months for Yutu 2 to reach the bizarre lunar feature.

The shape was spotted on the horizon in November during the mission's 36th lunar day, according to a Yutu 2 diary published by Our Space, a Chinese language science outreach channel affiliated with the China National Space Administration. Our Space first described the object in a post last week, temporarily dubbing it a “mystery hut” (神秘小屋/shenmi xiaowu).

Since Yutu 2 spotted the “mystery hut,” scientists have changed the six-wheeled vehicle course to investigate the cube. The solar-powered rover will spend two to three lunar days—equivalent to two to three months time on Earth—traversing the lunar landscape to take a closer look, so we should have more clues shortly, reports Andrew Jones for Space. 

 . . .

The "hut" may simply be a large boulder that’s been pushed up by meteor impact and taken on a geometric look in the low-resolution image. The blog post noted that there is an impact crater beside the mystery hut, further suggesting that the cube could just be an excavated lunar rock. 

This latest discovery isn’t the first curious thing the Yutu 2 rover has seen since its arrival on the far side of the moon almost three years ago. In September 2019, the rover encountered a strange, gel-like substance that turned out to be melted rock fragments cemented together from extreme heat. This year, Yutu 2 spotted unusual shards sticking out from the lunar surface that turned out to be rocks launched by a meteor impact, reports Gizmodo’s George Dvorsky.

Whatever the cube-shaped object is, we will have to wait another few months before getting an answer—until then, it's fun to speculate on what the “mystery hut” could be.

 

 

[Randy W]

The China National Space Administration published on Saturday four pictures taken by its #Tianwen 1 #Mars mission, including the first full photo of the mission orbiter.
The color pictures show the orbiter flying around the Red Planet in an orbit, the ice cover on Mars’ north pole and a scene of a barren Martian plain.
The orbiter’s full picture was taken by a camera released by the craft, which is now about 350 million kilometers away from Earth, the administration said in a statement.
Launched in July 2020 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, the Tianwen 1 robotic probe, named after an ancient Chinese poem, traveled a total of 475 million kilometers and carried out several trajectory maneuvers before entering Martian orbit on Feb 10.

from China Pictorial on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/4492799970845357

 

[Randy W]

On 12/8/2021 at 11:51 AM, Randy W said:

An intriguing cube-shaped object spotted on the far side of the moon has attracted the attention of scientists.

from the Smithsonianmag on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/smithsonianmagazine/posts/10158825842343253

Chinese Rover Spots Weird, Large ‘Cube’ on the Moon
The geometric lunar feature dubbed a ‘mystery hut’ has stumped scientists, who say they plan to take a closer look

 

Remember the “mystery house” on the dark side of the moon? China’s lunar rover Yutu-2 sends back new photos, unveiling the true face of this unknown object. It turns out to be a rock in the shape of a jade rabbit, which the lunar rover was named after.

from the Global Times on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/globaltimesnews/posts/4858946617519533

 

[Randy W]

In the next five years, the nation hopes to launch a robotic craft to an asteroid, two lunar missions and an orbital observatory

from the Scientific American on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/ScientificAmerican/posts/10165991732505246

China Plans Asteroid Missions, Space Telescopes and a Moon Base
In the next five years, the nation hopes to launch a robotic craft to an asteroid, two lunar missions and an orbital observatory

Quote

 

The missions were highlighted in a white paper, ‘China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective’, released last month. The plans continue the country’s trend in emphasizing missions with science at their heart, rather than technology development and applications, says Shuang-Nan Zhang, an astronomer at the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing. “This is a very good sign,” he says. “It’s a continuous increase in investment in exploration of the Universe.”

Nature looks at five of the most ambitious projects.

VISIT AN ASTEROID

TOWARDS A LUNAR BASE

MARS AND BEYOND

A NEW HUBBLE: THE XUNTIAN SPACE TELESCOPE

Slightly smaller than Hubble, Xuntian will not quite match its predecessor’s resolution; but, at any one time, Xuntian will capture a patch of sky 300 times larger. That will allow it to probe a much greater volume of the Universe than Hubble, says Zhan, who works on Xuntian.

DETECTING GRAVITATIONAL WAVES IN SPACE

 

 

[Randy W]

In the first known event of its kind, a new crater has been carved into the lunar surface by a piece of space junk.

from National Geographic Magazine on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/NGM/posts/10160129541378336

A rogue rocket part collided with the moon
It's the first piece of space junk found on a lunar collision course—and astronomers worry the problem will only get worse.

Quote

 

Astronomers believe the derelict rocket stage came from China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission that launched in 2014, but experts are not completely certain. Regardless of where it came from, the rocket’s impact did not damage anything other than the lunar surface.

“It’s not a big deal at the current level of occupation of the moon, which is currently population: robots, a couple of dozen; humans, zero. And maybe alien mutants grown from the human poop left there,” says astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Institute for Astrophysics. “There’s not much for it to hit.”

That likely won’t always be the case. Lunar exploration is ramping up, with humans once again setting their sights on establishing moon bases either on the surface or in orbit. Private companies are joining the handful of nations that have already sent hardware to the moon. And even if this particular collision isn’t a big deal, the next one could be.