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China lunar rover to check out cube-shaped 'mystery house' object on far side of the moon [cnet.com]:

The Yutu-2 rover is on a roll. It's been exploring the far side of the moon since early 2019 as part of China's Chang'e-4 lunar lander mission [cnet.com]. It now has its eyes set on a strange-looking cube-shaped object it spotted in the distance.

Andrew Jones, a journalist who covers the Chinese space program for SpaceNews [spacenews.com] and Space.com [space.com], highlighted a new rover update [qq.com] in a series of tweets Friday [twitter.com]. The nickname for the cube-shaped object translates to "mystery house."

The rover team is planning to drive over and get a closer look at the object.

As with Yutu-2's intriguing discovery of a "gel-like" substance [cnet.com] inside a crater in 2019, don't get too excited for aliens. That substance turned out to be glassy-looking rock [cnet.com]. And as far as I know, Stanley Kubrick never planted a monolith on the real moon, and those metal sculptures that were once all the rage on Earth [cnet.com] haven't made the trek across space.

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Yutu-2's view of the cube is fuzzy and far-off, so the object's true nature should become clearer as the rover gets closer. The most likely explanation is a boulder. This part of the moon is pockmarked with impact craters, which can feature quite a bit of chunky debris.

The Chang'e-4 mission represents the first surface exploration of the far side of the moon. The rover's work has helped scientists learn about what's happening with the geology under the lunar surface [cnet.com].

Spooky space shots show creepy side of the cosmos See all photos [cnet.com]+26 More [cnet.com]

Don't look to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon for scientific information about the lunar far side. China's rover is solar-powered, so it periodically goes into hibernation when it's dark and then gets back to work when the sun is out in the Von Karman crater.

According China Daily [chinadaily.com.cn], Yutu-2 has already traveled 2,756 feet (840 meters) across the moon. Its next jaunt should shed some light on the "mystery house."

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