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"I'm the rabbit that has seen the most stars."
New Scientist reports:
The moon just got a little more lonesome. China's State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) announced today [in Chinese] that its moon rover Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, has finally stopped operating after 31 months on the surface.
Yutu touched down on the lunar surface in December 2013 as part of the Chang'e-3 lander mission, making China the third country to reach the moon after Russia and the United States.
It was prematurely declared dead in February 2014 after a harsh lunar night -- the moon experiences two weeks of dark followed by two of light -- then showed signs of life, but was unable to move. Despite these issues, in October 2015 Yutu claimed the record for the longest operating rover on the moon.
SASTIND says data from Yutu has generated over 100 scientific papers about the moon, including the discovery of a previously unseen layer of lava flows.
Yutu's death isn't the end of China's lunar ambitions. The Chang'e 3 lander, which hosts a robotic telescope, is still going strong, and in 2017 the nation plans to launch a probe to gather moon rocks and bring them back to Earth.
[Continues...]
The BBC notes that:
On micro-blogging site Weibo, the rover's official first-person account has a following of over 600,000 fans.
It has kept them updated with news of its discoveries, as well as cute cartoons about its antics.
In February 2014, it briefly went quiet during a lunar night, but after recovering from mechanical difficulties posted the message: "Hi, anybody there?"
But in a message sent on Sunday it said: "This time it really is goodnight," the rover said
"There are still many questions I would like answers to, but I'm the rabbit that has seen the most stars."
"The Moon has prepared a long dream for me, I don't know what it will be like - will I be a Mars explorer, or be sent back to Earth?"
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday August 07 2016, @09:33AM
Git yer tinfoil hats out...
I have this stinkin' suspicion that there is something on the moon related to the pyramids, Machu Picchu, the Chaco ruins in New Mexico, the Aztec structures, and similar structures observed all over the Earth that have strikingly similar construction. I consider that life was seeded on Earth by an entity that developed space folding to be a likely reason we are here. By "space folding", I mean a way of traveling through vast distances, but sacrificing a time shift to do it. This resolves several things with me as far as Biblical references to angels occurring at intervals thousands of years apart and stuff like in the Book of Ezekiel. And all these bumps in evolution that seem all to quick to me.
I have a hard time rationalizing to myself how to bypass "irreducible complexity" by evolution. But if something outside was egging this thing on with appropriate code snippets, now that's a whole new ball park.
I feel a government would be hard pressed to reveal any findings on the pretense that it really upsets the religious controllers of the day. Not only that, if there is another entity out there, they probably want to insure that they be first in line to shake hands with it when the time comes.
You know, "skull and crossbones", "Opus Dei", kind of stuff. The Vatican has stuff going back centuries. I believe what we have is only a scratch as to what happened that initiated us being here. However an insurmountable barrier keeps us from getting much out of our playpen: SpaceTime is holding us like a jar.
The interpretation I get from reading the Scriptures is that natural processes have been egged-on and steered by visits on multi-thousand year to several million year intervals, which are the result of the time excursion traded for the distance excursion of the ones using the folding technology ( as during the fold, they are traveling the speed of light, hence they are frozen in time, while time continues for the universe-at-large ).
Yeh, I know. Tinfoil hat stuff big-time. However, its the only conjecture I have that seems to make what I observe and read in Scripture fall in place.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2016, @09:53PM
Yeh, I know. Tinfoil hat stuff big-time.
Brother, research the flat Earth.
Yes, really.