It ’s been a rocky route for Japan ’s SLIM lunar lander ever since it touched down on the Moon ’s surface . Having made a record - breaking landing with a bump that venture its entire mission , it made a comeback , rejuvenated by the Sun ’s rays . But now , it faces its toughest challenge yet : surviving the freezing lunar night . This may or may not be the close of the mission , but before it slipped into power - down mode it made certain to grab some final unbelievable figure of speech of the Moon ’s surface to send home .
On January 19 , after a nail - burn most two - 60 minutes wait , Japan confirmed its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon ( SLIM ) hadsuccessfully easy - landed on the Moon , making Japan the 5th nation to do so . However , from the get - go , the squad on the basis make love something was up . It had nailed its preciseness landing inside the Shioli Crater and deployed its two rovers – two of its master foreign mission goals – but the lander ’s solar panel were not harvesting sunlight and it was take to the woods on just batteries .
Anincredible phototaken by one of the rover reveal the lander had put down on its nose , mean the solar panel were not in the correct place to pluck up the Sun ’s rays . There was a good prospect , however , that if they waited for the Moon to go around the Earth , the alteration in angle would signify the sun could reach the lander ’s solar cell and start charging . Nearly 10 24-hour interval after it landed , it did indeedcome back to spirit , reinstate contact and direct back new pic .
Since then , the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( JAXA ) has been scan the lunar open andtaking imagesusing SLIM ’s Multi - Band Camera ( MBC ) to analyze the rocky composition , even managing to observe more prey than design . However , yesterday the blank space agency confirmed SLIM has powered down as it has entered the quiescency stop during the two - weeklunar night , where no sunlight will reach its panel .
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Now , JAXA will have to wait out the long lunar night , which lasts around 14.5 Earth days , and where temperature can plummet to -130 ° C ( -208 ° F ) . If SLIM survives , sparkle and temperature stipulation should ameliorate around February 15 and JAXA will try and make contact again .
If it does , then it can continue with its skill missions , explore the surrounding area of Shioli crater , which sit in the heavy Cyrillus volcanic crater on the near side of the Moon . If it does n’t , then it has already made history with the most exact landing on another reality . SLIM aimed to set ashore within 100 metre ( 330 foot ) of its object area – for linguistic context , Perseverance ’s landing target region on Mars was 7.7 kilometers by 6 kilometers ( 4.8 by 4.1 miles ) – and JAXA has since confirm it shoot down within just 55 meters ( 180 pes ) , a phenomenal achievement .
The lunar nighttime is not historicallykind to lander , and many are not built to last it . If SLIM backwash up in two weeks ' time , its deputation has already been fulfilled – but it will continue to observe and analyze the chemical composition of the rocks it sees on the lunar surface to help reset the mystery story of theorigin of the Moon .
