India: Explorer robot confirms presence of sulfur on the Moon – 08/30/2023 – Science

The Indian explorer robot confirmed the presence of sulfur at the south pole of the Moon, announced the space agency of the Asian country.

Last week, India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole and the fourth nation to carry out a landing.

“The Laser Induced Decomposition Spectroscopy (Libs) instrument aboard the Chandrayaan-3 rover has made the first ‘in-situ’ measurements of the composition of elements on the lunar surface near the south pole,” announced the Indian Space Research Organization ( isro) in a statement.

“The ‘in-situ’ measurements unequivocally confirm the presence of sulfur in the region, something that was not feasible with the instruments on board the orbiters”, adds the note.

Spectrographic analysis also confirmed the presence of aluminum, calcium, iron, chromium and titanium on the lunar surface, according to Isro. Other measurements showed the presence of manganese, silicon and oxygen.

The robot Pragyan (wisdom in Sanskrit), with six wheels and powered by solar energy, will travel around the South Pole and transmit images and scientific data over the course of two weeks.

India is working to match the achievements of other space programs at a fraction of the cost, despite having had some setbacks.

Four years ago, another Indian moon mission failed during its final descent.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission has captured the country’s public opinion since its launch nearly six weeks ago. The landing at Lula’s south pole took place last week, a few days after an accident with a Russian spacecraft in the same region.

In 2014, India became the first Asian country to orbit Mars and hopes to launch a probe to study the Sun in September.

ISRO plans to launch a three-day manned mission to Earth orbit next year.

It has also scheduled a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the Moon by 2025 and an orbital mission to Venus within the next two years.