In 2013, China became the third country to land a vehicle on the moon. Now, a trove of photos from Chang’e-3's historic expedition—35 Gigabytes in all—are easily searchable on the web. These are our first fresh images taken from the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor in forty years.
A team of scientists has finished analyzing rocks collected by the Chinese lunar rover Yutu in 2013 — the first geologic sampling effort to hit the Moon in forty years. The regolith is unlike any we’ve seen before, and it suggests that the Moon’s history is far more complex than we realized.
At last, a good panorama from China's Chang'e 3 lander. It shows a three-step time-lapse of the Jade Rabbit robotic rover heading south, getting away from its mothership "likely never to return again." Zoom in:
Zoom, tilt, pan and scan in this breathtaking interactive view of the moon's surface and beyond (check out that view of Earth!). Assembled from images acquired by China's recently arrived Chang'e 3 lunar lander, it's the next best thing to being there.
Just a decade after entering the space race, China is headed to the moon. With the successful launch of a Long March rocket carrying the Chang'e 3 lunar lander earlier this morning, China is attempting to become the third nation in history to land (rather than crash) a spacecraft on the lunar surface.
The Chinese National Space Administration has successfully launched its Chang'e-3 lunar probe to the moon. If all goes well from here, it'll be the first Chinese spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body — and the first rover to land on the moon in four decades.
