Yesterday , India made history , becoming the fourth nation toland on the Moonand the first to land at the lunar South Pole . Now , we ’ve capture thefirst photosof the landing situation and the gutsy rover Pragyan , the Moon ’s newest occupier , has start research its new home .
" The Ch-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander and India took a walking on the Moon ! " the Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO)shared on X(formerly Twitter ) . Now , its 14 day ( one lunar day ) of science observations have begun .
Pragyan , which means “ wiseness ” in Sanskrit , tramp out of the Vikram lander a few hours after the successful touchdown of Chandrayaan-3 near the lunar South Pole . To the surprise of some , it did n’t land in an ancient volcanic crater like Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars – but there is a good reason for that .
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The Moon ’s South Pole is the hot destination right now , with multiple mission attempting to get there , includingLunar-25 ( RIP)and Artemis 3 , which plans toland mankind there . The ground is that there is mass of ice pin down there , something that will be vital for future crew commission and any Bob Hope of future settlements .
A lot of that ice is indeed obtain in the Moon ’s ancient craters , freeze because theSun never reachesthese parts of the lunar airfoil . However , solar tycoon is full of life for Moon rovers to power their journeys and to survive the freezing lunar night temperatures . In fact , Vikram has replicate the solar control board of its fated precursor .
The Moon ’s southerly terrain is also difficult to maneuver in , and Pragyan may not make its way out of a volcanic crater . Plus , looking for urine sparkler is not listed among Chandrayaan-3’smission objectives . However , it ’s in the perfect place to study the thermal properties of the lunar surface near the southern gelid realm , its seismicity , composition , and near - surface plasma denseness . Pragyan is equipped with a variety of instruments including a mass spectrometer , magnetometer , and camera .
If you desire to be super nerdy , you’re able to even count up Vikram ’s landing site and where the six - roll rover is exploring . ISRO has share its coordinates as 69.367621 ° S , 32.348126 ° E - around100 kilometers(62 mile ) from where the doomed Chandrayaan-2 crash - land in 2019 .
ISRO has prognosticate more updates so hopefully , we ’ll get the first images from Pragyan ’s navigation tv camera shortly .
