India on the Moon: see photos from other recent missions – 08/23/2023 – Science

When the US military probe Clementine found evidence of water on the surface of the Moon in 1994, exploration of the satellite regained traction among countries. Four years earlier, the Japanese had placed a satellite in lunar orbit. Until then, the last mission had taken place in 1976, still in the Cold War.

India again created a milestone and became the fourth country to land on the Moon, with the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission this Wednesday (23), after Russia (then Soviet Union), United States and China —which was the first nation to land on the far side of the satellite, in 2019.

Water has made the Moon an attractive place again since 1994. In space, it can be used for drinking, breathing (by separating oxygen) and fueling rockets (by separating hydrogen).

From then on, different missions were launched in the following years to explore and study the satellite, also updating the images already recorded.

The most recent was that of a failed mission, Russia’s Luna 25, which collided with the lunar surface after a maneuver failure. The photo shows the terrain and some craters.

In April, the probe of the company ispace, which also lost contact, took a photo showing the lunar surface and, in the background, the planet Earth over the dark of space.

At the turn of the year, South Korea also released images of its debut mission. The Danuri orbiter recorded part of the surface of the Moon with half of the Earth in the background, in a black and white image.

Twenty days earlier, the Orion spacecraft, from the Artemis mission, which can take humans back to the Moon, made images of craters during its passage. The flight was part of an Orion test in preparation for the goal of carrying people.

Still, in 2019, China released images of the successful landing made by the Chang’e-4 mission on the far side of the moon. Another photo, however, ended up being successful because of memes.

Yutu-2, the mission vehicle, captured an image of what looked like a large cubic object on the horizon about 80 meters from its location. A series of memes showed the vehicle rolling across the lunar surface towards some obelisks, a tall monolith and even a giant hammer and sickle — the symbol of the Communist Party.

Now, in addition to the celebrations in India, images of the lunar surface taken by a Chandrayaan-3 moon landing camera have also been released.