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Chang'e Lander sends back Far Side panorama

Accepted submission by RandomFactor at 2019-01-12 16:32:27 from the 1 : 4 : 9 dept.
Science

A panorama [purch.com] from the dark side of the moon is now available from China's Chang'e 4 Lander.

China made history earlier this month with the first successful soft landing [space.com] on the far side [space.com] of the moon — and now, the mission has sent back an incredible panorama view of its work site.

The image is available in hi-res here [cnsa.gov.cn]

The mission consists of two robots: the Chang'e 4 lander and the Yutu 2 rover. Since their arrival on Jan. 2, both have been exploring the lunar surface inside Von Kármán Crater, a 115-mile-wide (186 kilometers) feature

Putting this into units Soylentils are comfortable with, this is approximately 1049 Ice Hockey rinks across.

The Yutu 2 rover is visible not far away in the panorama, but is currently not active as it hibernates through the long Lunar day, during which temperatures can reach an electronics damaging 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius).

High temperature electronics [analog.com] can be done, but presumably making them also function at low temperatures (-173 degrees Celsius at night) presents challenges that were not worth overcoming and the decision was made to survive one extreme and operate in the other.


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