First probe on the Moon’s far side uncovers hints of lunar interior
China’s Chang’e-4 mission to the far side of the Moon has detected minerals thought to have been excavated from deep beneath the lunar surface by an ancient asteroid.
The spacecraft landed in the Von Kármán crater in the South Pole-Aitken basin in January, marking the first time a probe has ever visited the Moon’s far side. In its first investigations, the mission’s Yutu-2 rover used a visible and near-infrared spectrometer to analyse the light reflected off the crater’s surface.
Characteristic absorption patterns in the light, described in a paper in Nature today, suggest the presence of the dense minerals olivine and low-calcium pyroxene, which are unlike any samples returned by previous probes and might originate from the lunar mantle.
This is a picture of the far side of the Moon and Earth beyond, captured on Feb. 4 by a camera on board the student-built Chinese DSLWP-B/Longjiang-2 satellite and received by the amateur-operated Dwingeloo Telescope in The Netherlands
A cotton seed brought to the moon by China’s Chang'e 4 probe has sprouted, the latest test photo has shown, marking the completion of humankind’s first biological experiment on the moon
Chang'e-4 and Yutu-2 take pictures of each other on the far side of the Moon
From the moon’s far side, a radio receiver will listen for ancient clues to the universe’s origin
China launched the relay communication satellite Queqiao, or “bridge of magpies,” on May 21 at 5:28am Beijing time from its Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan province, according to the country’s space agency. Named for the birds in a Chinese folktale that help connect two parted lovers once a year, Queqiao will connect earth to the Chang’e-4 lander and rover that China plans to launch towards the end of this year. It’s an essential step for the lunar exploration mission because direct communication is impossible between the moon’s far side and the earth. If all goes as planned, China will become the world’s first nation to land on the far side of the moon by the end of the year.
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A radio antenna, which is being transported with Queqiao, will be stationed some 60,000 km behind the moon. Scientists are hoping that the radio antenna will reveal clues about the early universe, the time after the Big Bang when stars began to form from an ocean of hydrogen.
Signals have different wavelengths, and those in lower frequencies are harder to catch from a place with a lot of interference like the earth, according to Heino Falcke, professor of astrophysics from Netherland’s Radboud University, which led the effort to design and build the antenna, known as the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE).
per the China Manned Space Engineering office, Tiangong-1 re-entered the atmosphere and burned up at around 00:15 UTC, April 2nd, in the southern Pacific Ocean - so may not be any photos/video if no ships were below the track.
This animation of radar images shows the Tiangong-1 space station tumbling out of control on March 27th, 2018. The re-entry will be on or around April 1st, located somewhere between 43°N and 43°S. It is expected that at least some of the 8.5 ton spacecraft will impact the Earth’s surface.
Image credit: Fraunhofer FHR
It is a well known scientific principle that any measurement or prediction will always have an associated uncertainty. In the case of most reentering objects, the uncertainty associated with predicting reentry location is extremely large and precludes an accurate location prediction until shortly before the reentry has occured. In general, it is much easier to predict an accurate reentry time rather than an accurate reentry location. Based on Tiangong-1’s inclination, however, we can confidently say that this object will reenter somewhere between 43° North and 43° South latitudes.
An 8.5-tonne Chinese space station has accelerated its out-of-control descent towards Earth and is expected to crash to the surface within a few months.
The Tiangong-1 or “Heavenly Palace” lab was launched in 2011 and described as a “potent political symbol” of China, part of an ambitious scientific push to turn China into a space superpower.
It was used for both manned and unmanned missions and visited by China’s first female astronaut, Liu Yang, in 2012.
But in 2016, after months of speculation, Chinese officials confirmed they had lost control of the space station and it would crash to Earth in 2017 or 2018. China’s space agency has since notified the UN that it expects Tiangong-1 to come down between October 2017 and April 2018.
On Thursday, a Chinese Long March 7 rocket successfully lifted off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, carrying the Tainzhou-1 spacecraft. This large, 10.6-meter-long cargo vehicle is the first of a new line of spacecraft that China intends to use to eventually service a large space station akin to the International Space Station.
During the next two months, the spacecraft will make three docking attempts with the Tiangong-2 space station, a smaller prototype for a larger station China intends to build during the coming decade. After these three proof-of-concept dockings, which will occur from different directions, the Tianzhou-1 will separate from the station and perform several months of experiments before burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.
The Long March 5 Space Launch Vehicle (CZ-5) builds the heavy-lift component in China’s new line of rockets introduced in 2015/16 to ultimately replace the country’s current Long March rocket series. Operated alongside the Long March 5 are the medium-lift Long March 7 and the small CZ-6 rockets to cover the entire spectrum of launches ranging from crew and cargo missions to China’s upcoming space station, standard LEO satellite launches and the delivery of heavy Geostationary Satellites.
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