A solar halo was visible neara the Chilidog Observatory in Monterrey, Mexico. Credit and copyright: César Cantú.
Here’s a few great astrophotos for today! Astrophotographer César Cantú from the Chilidog Observatory in Monterrey, Mexico captured this stunning halo around the Sun on March 2, 2014. A solar halo is an optical phenomenon produced by ice crystals creating colored or white arcs and spots in the sky. Conditions in the atmosphere have to be just right, with moisture or ice crystals creating a “rainbow” effect around the Sun. Sometimes the halos surround the Sun completely, other times, they appear as arcs around the Sun creating what is known as sundogs. Basically, sunlight is reflecting off moisture in the atmosphere.
Ice crystals in Earth’s atmosphere can also cause rings around the Moon, and moondogs and even Venus “pillars.”
But make sure you look at the crescent Moon tonight — if you’ve missed seeing the thin crescent the past two evenings, tonight it will still be only 11% illuminated (according to Universe Today’s Phases of the Moon app!). Tonight you still might have the chance to see a little Earthshine — reflected Earthlight visible on the Moon’s night side.
See some great crescent Moon and Earthshine images below!
This image comes from one of our “regulars,” John Chumack, who says, “If you have clear skies, go out again tonight (03-03-2014) and look West between 7:00pm and 8:00pm EST, you will see the crescent Moon with Earthshine!”
Also, just another note from John: between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm the Planet Uranus is 7.5 degrees below the Crescent Moon just after Sunset, but you will not see Uranus until it gets dark enough. You will need a telescope or binoculars to easily view Uranus at Magnitude 5.9, shortly after 8:15pm Uranus will set in the west and then the Moon follows shortly after that.
The young thin Crescent Moon with Earthshine was hanging low in the west near Tampa, Florida on March 2, 2014. Credit and copyright: John Chumack.The Crescent Moon at 2.45 days old on March 3, 2014. Credit and copyright: James Lennie.Crescent Moon with Earthshine on March 3, 2014. Credit and copyright: Raymond Gilchrist.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
We’ve all seen charts showing the relative sizes of planets and moons compared to each other, which are cool to look at but don’t really give a sense of the comparative masses of the various worlds in our Solar System. It’s one thing to say the Earth is four times larger than the Moon, it’s entirely another to realize it’s 87 times more massive!
That’s where this new animation from astrophysicist Rhys Taylor comes in nicely.
Occultation of Saturn on Feb. 22, 2014 by Colin Legg
Or, more accurately, watch the Moon pass in front of Saturn. Either way you get the same result: a beautiful video of planetary motion in action!
On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 22, the Moon drifted in front of the planet Saturn from the point of view of certain locations on Earth. Luckily one of those locations was Perth, Australia, where astrophotographer Colin Legg happens to be, and thus we all get to enjoy the fantastic results of his photographic and astronomical acumen.
Check out the video below:
The occultation — as such events are called whenever one celestial object passes in front of, or “hides,” another (the root of the word means “to conceal”) — may make it look like a tiny Saturn is getting absorbed by a giant Moon. But (obviously) they are separated by a vast distance: at the time of the occultation, 9.658 AU, or about 1,444,816,000 kilometers (897.7 million miles).
These sort of events will become a bit more common as the Moon is “headed towards a ‘shallow’ year in 2015 relative to the ecliptic; it will then begin to slowly open back up and ride high around 2025,” according to a recent Universe Today article by David Dickinson.
For those of you interested, Colin lists his equipment as a Celestron C8, f/10, prime focus. His camera is a Canon 5D2, running Magic Lantern RAW video firmware in 3x crop mode @ 1880 x 1056 resolution. Footage was taken at 1/60 sec exposure, ISO 200, 10 fps.
An image of the flash resulting from the impact of a large meteorite on the lunar surface on 11 September 2013, obtained with the MIDAS observatory. Credit: J. Madiedo / MIDAS
Hey, all you astro-photographers/videographers out there: were you shooting the Moon back on September 11, 2013? You may want to review your footage and see if you captured a bright flash which occurred at about 20:07 GMT. Astronomers say a meteorite with the mass of a small car slammed into the Moon at that time and the impact produced a bright flash, and it even would have been easy to spot from the Earth.
According to astronomers Jose M. Madiedo, from the University of Huelva and Jose L. Ortiz, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia both in Spain, this impact was the longest and brightest confirmed lunar impact flash ever observed, as the “afterglow” of the impact remained visible for 8 seconds.
The astronomers think the bright flash was produced by an impactor of around 400 kg with a width of between 0.6 and 1.4 meters. The rock hit may have hit Mare Nubium at about 61,000 kilometers per hour (38,000 miles per hour) — although the uncertainty of the impact is fairly high, the team says in their paper. But if it is as high as they think, it may have created a new crater with a diameter of around 40 meters. The impact energy was equivalent to an explosion of roughly 15 tons of TNT.
This beats the previous largest impact seen – which occurred just six months earlier in March 2013 – which was estimated to pack as much punch as 5 tons of TNT. Astronomers that explosion was caused by a 40 kg meteoroid measuring 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide, traveling about 90,000 km/hr (56,000 mph.)
How often does an asteroid hit the Moon? Astronomers actually aren’t very sure.
On average, 33 metric tons (73,000 lbs) of meteoroids hit Earth every day, the vast majority of which harmlessly ablates or burns up high in Earth’s atmosphere, never making it to the ground. The Moon, however, has little or no atmosphere, so meteoroids have nothing to stop them from striking the surface.
The lunar impact rate is so uncertain because observations for objects in the mass range of visible impacts from Earth are quite few. But now, astronomers have set up networks of telescopes that can detect them automatically. NASA has the Automated Lunar and Meteor Observatory (ALaMO) at Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Spanish telescopes are part of the Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System (MIDAS) system.
Lunar meteors hit the ground with so much kinetic energy that they don’t require an oxygen atmosphere to create a visible explosion. The flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapors at the impact site.
This thermal glow can be detected from Earth as short-duration flashes through telescopes. Generally, these flashes last just a fraction of a second. But the flash detected on September 11, 2013 was much more intense and longer than anything observed before.
Mosaic of zoomed images showing the flash evolution from the Sept. 11, 2013 impact during the first 2 seconds. Time increases from left to right in each row, starting from the upper left. The time interval between two consecutive images in the same row is 0.1 s. Credit: Madiedo, Ortiz, et al. 2014.
“Our telescopes will continue observing the Moon as our meteor cameras monitor the Earth’s atmosphere,” said Madiedo and Ortiz in a press release. “In this way we expect to identify clusters of rocks that could give rise to common impact events on both planetary bodies. We also want to find out where the impacting bodies come from.”
The Earth has a single moon, while Saturn has more than 60, with new moons being discovered all the time. But here’s a question, can a moon have a moon? Can that moon’s moon have its own moon? Can it be moons all the way down?
First, consider that we have a completely subjective idea of what a moon is. The Moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way, which orbits within the Local Group, which is a part of the Virgo Supercluster. The motions of objects in the cosmos act like a set of Russian nesting dolls, with things orbiting things, which orbit other things. So maybe a better question is: could any of the moons in the Solar System have moons of their own? Well actually, one does.
Right now, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is happily orbiting around the Moon, photographing the place in high resolution. But humans sent it to the Moon, and just like all the artificial satellites sent there in the past, it’s doomed. No satellite we’ve sent to the Moon has ever orbited for longer than a few years before crashing down into the lunar surface. In theory, you could probably get a satellite to last a few hundred years around the Moon.
But why? How come we can’t make moons for our moon to have a moon of it’s own for all time? It all comes down to gravity and tidal forces. Every object in the Universe is surrounded by an invisible sphere of gravity. Anything within this volume, which astronomers call the “Hill Sphere”, will tend to orbit the object.
So, if you had the Moon out in the middle of space, without any interactions, it could easily have multiple moons orbiting around it. But you get problems when you have these overlapping spheres of influence. The strength of gravity from the Earth tangles with the force of gravity from the Moon.
How many moons are there in the Solar System? Image credit: NASA
Although a spacecraft can orbit the Moon for a while, it’s just not stable. The tidal forces will cause the spacecraft’s orbit to decay until it crashes. But further out in the Solar System, there are tiny asteroids with even tinier moons. This is possible because they’re so far away from the Sun. Bring these asteroids closer to the Sun, and someone’s losing a moon.
The object with the largest Hill Sphere in the Solar System is Neptune. Because it’s so far away from the Sun, and it’s so massive, it can truly influence its environment. You could imagine a massive moon distantly orbiting Neptune, and around that moon, there could be a moon of its own. But this doesn’t appear to be the case.
NASA is considering a mission to capture an asteroid and put it into orbit around the Moon. This would be safer than having it orbit the Earth, but still keep it close enough to extract resources. But without any kind of orbital boost, those tidal forces will eventually crash it onto the Moon. So no, in our Solar System, we don’t know of any moons with moons of their own. In fact, we don’t even have a name for them. What would you suggest?
Chang’e-3/Yutu Timelapse Color Panorama This newly expanded timelapse composite view shows China’s Yutu moon rover at two positions passing by crater and heading south and away from the Chang’e-3 lunar landing site forever about a week after the Dec. 14, 2013 touchdown at Mare Imbrium. This cropped view was taken from the 360-degree timelapse panorama. See complete 360 degree landing site timelapse panorama herein and APOD Feb. 3, 2014. Chang’e-3 landers extreme ultraviolet (EUV) camera is at right, antenna at left. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – kenkremer.com. See our complete Yutu timelapse pano at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.htm
Chang’e-3/Yutu Timelapse Color Panorama
This newly expanded timelapse composite view shows China’s Yutu moon rover at two positions passing by crater and heading south and away from the Chang’e-3 landing site forever about a week after the Dec. 14, 2013 touchdown at Mare Imbrium. This cropped view was taken from the 360-degree timelapse panorama. See complete 360 degree landing site timelapse panorama herein and APOD Feb. 3, 2014. . Chang’e-3 landers extreme ultraviolet (EUV) camera is at right, antenna at left. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – kenkremer.com.
See our complete Yutu timelapse pano at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.htm
Story updated[/caption]
The world famous and hugely popular ‘Yutu’ rover entered its 3rd Lunar night time hibernation period this weekend as planned, but serious technical troubles persist that are hampering science operations Chinese space managers confirmed.
“China’s lunar rover Yutu entered its third planned dormancy on Saturday, with the mechanical control issues that might cripple the vehicle still unresolved,” reports Xinhua, China’s official government news agency, in a mission status update newly released today (Feb. 23).
Yutu went to sleep on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 22, local Beijing time, according to China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND), responsible for the mission.
The companion Chang’e-3 lunar lander entered hibernation soon thereafter early today, Sunday, Feb 23.
360-degree time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander
This new 360-degree time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander shows the Yutu rover at five different positions, including passing by crater and heading south and away from the Chang’e-3 lunar landing site forever during its trek over the Moon’s surface at its landing site from Dec. 15-22, 2013 during the 1st Lunar Day. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – kenkremer.com. See our Yutu timelapse pano at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.htm
The abnormality occurred due to the “complicated lunar surface,” according to SASTIND.
Chang’e-3 lander from Yutu moon rover
New mosaic of the Chang’e-3 moon lander and the lunar surface taken by the camera on China’s Yutu moon rover from a position south of the lander. Note the landing ramp and rover tracks at left. Credit: CNSA/SASTIND/Xinhua/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Chinese space officials have not divulged the exact nature of the problems. And they have not released any details of the efforts to resolve the issues that “might cripple the vehicle.”
Since both Chinese Moon probes are solar powered, they must power down and enter a dormant mode during every two week long lunar night period when there is no sunlight to generate energy from their solar arrays. And no communications with Earth are possible.
The rover, nicknamed ‘Jade Rabbit’ remained stationary during the just concluded two week long lunar day time period, said SASTIND. It was unable to move due to the mechanical glitches.
“Yutu only carried out fixed point observations during its third lunar day.”
But it did complete some limited scientific observations. And fortunately the ground penetrating radar, panoramic and infrared imaging equipment are functioning normally.
This time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander shows the Yutu rover at two different positions during its trek over the Moon’s surface at its landing site from Dec. 15-18, 2013. This view was taken from the 360-degree panorama. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo. See our complete Yutu timelapse pano herein and at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.htm
The six wheel robot’s future was placed in jeopardy after it suffered the “mechanical anomaly” in late January 2014 and then awoke later than the scheduled time on Feb. 10, at the start of its 3rd Lunar Day.
To the teams enormous relief, a signal was finally detected.
“Yutu has come back to life!” said Pei Zhaoyu, the spokesperson for China’s lunar probe program, according to a Feb. 12 news report by the state owned Xinhua news agency.
“Experts are still working to verify the causes of its mechanical control abnormality.”
360-degree time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander
This 360-degree time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander shows the Yutu rover at three different positions during its trek over the Moon’s surface at its landing site from Dec. 15-22, 2013 during the 1st Lunar Day. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – kenkremer.com. See our Yutu timelapse pano at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.htm
Since then, Chinese space engineers sought to troubleshoot the technical problems and were in a race against time to find a solution before the start of Lunar Night 3 this weekend.
“Experts had feared that it might never function again, but Yutu “woke up” on Feb. 12, two days behind schedule,” reported Xinhua.
Each lunar day and night lasts for alternating periods of 14 Earth days.
During each long night, the Moon’s temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit.
Both solar powered probes must enter hibernation mode during each lunar night to conserve energy and protect their science instruments and control mechanisms, computers and electronics.
“Scientists are still trying to find a fix for the abnormalities,” said CCTV, China’s official state television network.
So Yutu is now sleeping with the problems unresolved and no one knows what the future holds.
Hopefully Jade Rabbit awakes again in about two weeks time to see the start of Lunar Day 4.
The Chang’e-3 mothership lander and piggybacked Yutu surface rover soft landed on the Moon on Dec. 14, 2013 at Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) – marking China’s first successful spacecraft landings on an extraterrestrial body in history.
Snow Moon 2014 showing where China’s Yutu rover lives and works on lunar surface, at upper left. Photo: Mark Usciak. Annotation: Ken Kremer
‘Jade Rabbit’ had departed the landing site forever, and was journeying southwards as the anomoly occurred – about six weeks into its planned 3 month long moon roving expedition to investigate the moon’s surface composition and natural resources.
The 140 kg Yutu robot is located some 100 m south of the lander.
The 1200 kg stationary lander is expected to return science data about the Moon and conduct telescopic observations of the Earth and celestial objects for at least one year.
Chang’e-3 and Yutu landed on a thick deposit of volcanic material.
Landing site of Chinese lunar probe Chang’e-3 on Dec. 14, 2013.
China is only the 3rd country in the world to successfully soft land a spacecraft on Earth’s nearest neighbor after the United States and the Soviet Union.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Chang’e-3, Orion, Orbital Sciences, SpaceX, commercial space, LADEE, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover – from Above And Below Composite view shows China’s Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover from Above And Below (orbit and surface) – lander color panorama (top) and orbital view from NASA’s LRO orbiter (bottom). Chang’e-3 lander color panorama shows Yutu rover after it drove down the ramp to the moon’s surface and began driving around the landers right side to the south. Yellow lines connect craters seen in the lander panorama and the LROC image from LRO (taken at a later date after the rover had moved), red lines indicate approximate field of view of the lander panorama. Credit: CNSA/NASA/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo/Mark RobinsonTraverse Path of Yutu rover from Dec. 14 landing to Dec. 21. Landscape textured with Chang’e 3 imagery from space and ground. Credit: CNSA/BACC
An oblique view from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of Icarus Crater on the Moon. The shadow created by the unusual central peak in the crater is reminiscent of a certain Star Wars character. Icarus is approximately 94 km in diameter. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
Scientists from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter say that Icarus Crater is one of a kind on the Moon because its central peak rises higher than about half its rim. Most central peaks rise only about halfway to the crater rim. But at just the ring angle and lighting conditions, the shadow this central peak creates on the rolling and jagged crater rim looks like the Star Wars Character Yoda. Interestingly, this crater is located on what some people erroneously call the “Dark Side” of the Moon – what is actually the lunar farside.
Yoda meditates about moons. Via Blastr.com
Below you can see a closeup of the central peak of Icarus crater rising out of the shadows to greet a new lunar day.
The central peak of Icarus Crater on the Moon’s farside, as seen by LROC. Image width is approximately 10 km, north is to the right. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
Icarus is located just west of Korolev crater on the lunar farside. The light-colored plains surrounding the craters were deposited during the formation of the Orientale basin, which is located over 1500 km away.
Image from LRO’s Wide Angle Camera of Icarus crater and vicinity. Image width is approximately 365 km. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
Find out more about these images from LRO and see larger versions at the LROC website.
Astronomers: David Dickinson, Gary Gonella, James McGee, Tom Nathe, Mike Phillips, Mike Simmons, Roy Salisbury, Shahrin Ahmad
Views tonight: Horsehead Nebula, Flame Nebula, Europa Transit of Jupiter with Great Red Spot, a cluster of sunspots, Rosette Nebula, a near-Earth asteroid, a capture of Barnard’s Loop, Orion Nebula, M81, various telescopes of the astronomers, our moon, another transit of Jupiter by one of the moons, M67, NGC 2169-the “37” Cluster, our moon – full view, California Nebula.
We hold the Virtual Star Party every Sunday night as a live Google+ Hangout on Air. We begin the show when it gets dark on the West Coast. If you want to get a notification, make sure you circle the Virtual Star Party on Google+. You can watch on our YouTube channel or here on Universe Today.
Farewell Yutu - artistic impression of Earthrise over Yutu at lunar landing site. This composite photomosaic combines farewell view of China’s Yutu rover with Moon’s surface terrain at Mare Imbrium landing site and enlarged photo of Earth, all taken by Chang’e-3 lander. Not a science image. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – kenkremer.com
Farewell Yutu – artistic impression of Earthrise over Yutu at lunar landing site. This composite timelapse photomosaic combines farewell view of China’s Yutu rover with Moon’s surface terrain at Mare Imbrium landing site and enlarged photo of Earth – all actual images taken by Chang’e-3 lander. Not a science image. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – kenkremer.com
See complete Yutu timelapse panorama below and at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.html Story and Headline revised and updated[/caption]
Update: There might yet be hope for Yutu. Amateur radio operators at UHF-satcom reported detection of a signal from Yutu today. But no update has been reported on the China News Service website or other official state media. Yutu’s fate is unknown.]
Update 2: Yutu is alive. story and headline revised. Further details – here
………..
For a time, it seemed China’s maiden moon rover ‘Yutu’, beloved by millions worldwide, had been lost.
The apparently unfortunate and sad breaking news was just reported today in an ultra brief dispatch by the English language version of Chinadaily – with the headline “Loss of lunar rover.”
But the death notice by Chinese officials turned out to be premature when a signal was detected a day later.
It had been thought that Yutu froze to death due to a pre-hibernation mechanical malfunction and failed to wake up and communicate with China’s mission controllers in Beijing on Monday, Feb. 10, when daylight returned to the rovers Moon landing site at Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) at the start of what would have been Lunar Day 3 for the mission.
“China’s first lunar rover, Yutu, could not be restored to full function on Monday [Feb. 10] as expected,” wrote the state owned Chinadaily.com, China News Service agency.
The cause of the pre-hibernation malfunction may perhaps be traced back to a buildup of abrasive lunar dust, but no one knows at this time.
Note: This story has been updated as further details emerged.
Portrait photo of Yutu moon rover taken by camera on the Chang’e-3 moon lander on Dec. 15, 2013 shortly after rolling all 6 wheels onto lunar surface. Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yutu has touched the hearts of countless Earthlings since the history making landing on the desolate gray plains of the the Moon atop the Chang’e-3 lander two month ago on Dec. 14, 2013.
See our timelapse mosaic, artistic impression of Earthrise over Yutu – above – by the image processing team of Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo.
It combines real images of the Moon’s surface terrain with an intentionally enlarged photo of Earth – all snapped by the Chang’e-3 lander – as a homage to the mission.
See the complete timelapse mosaic herein and featured at NASA APOD on Feb 3, 2013.
Although definitive word about the Chang’e-3 lander has not yet been announced, it is expected to survive and has a 1 year design lifetime.
Potentially bad news about Yutu’s fate was not unexpected however, after Chinese space officials disclosed that the rover “experienced a mechanical control abnormality” two weeks ago, just as her 2nd lunar night was to begin, according to a report by China’s official government newspaper, The People’s Daily.
“Yutu experienced mechanical problems on Jan 25 and has been unable to function since then,” according to Chinadaily.com, China News service.
360-degree time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander
This 360-degree time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander shows the Yutu rover at three different positions during its trek over the Moon’s surface at its landing site from Dec. 15-22, 2013 during the 1st Lunar Day.
Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – kenkremer.com
See our Yutu timelapse pano also at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.html
The six wheeled Yutu rover and Chang’e-3 mothership lander had just finished sleeping through the terribly frigid two week long lunar night since they entered their second hibernation period on Jan. 24th and 25th respectively, and Chinese space engineers had hoped to reawaken both probes in the past few days.
No communications are possible during the period of nighttime dormancy.
This time-lapse color panorama from China’s Chang’e-3 lander shows the Yutu rover at two different positions during its trek over the Moon’s surface at its landing site from Dec. 15-18, 2013. This view was taken from the 360-degree panorama, herein. Credit: CNSA/Chinanews/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo. See our complete Yutu timelapse pano also at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.htm
Yutu, which translates as ‘Jade Rabbit’ is named after the rabbit in Chinese mythology that lives on the Moon as a pet of the Moon goddess Chang’e.
Photo of Chang’e-3 moon lander emblazoned with Chinese national flag taken by the panoramic camera on the Yutu moon rover on Dec. 22, 2013. Credit: CNSA
Apparently one of Yutu’s solar panels did not fold back properly over the instrument laden mast after it was lowered to a horizontal position into a warmed electronics box where it is shielded and insulated from the extremely frigid lunar night time temperatures.
Dust accumulation on the rover and gears may possibly be to blame for the failure to retract, based on unofficial accounts.
China has not released any official or detailed information on the cause of the malfunction or recovery actions taken by Chinese space engineers.
Such a malfunction could spell doom for the fragile electronic and computer components in the unprotected mast mounted instruments and systems, including the color and navigation cameras and the high gain antenna.
During each 14 Earth-day long night, the Moon’s temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit.
‘Jade Rabbit’ had departed the landing site forever, and was journeying southwards as the incident occurred – about six weeks into its planned 3 month long moon roving expedition to investigate the moon’s surface composition and natural resources.
The 140 kg Yutu robot drove off a pair of ramps and onto the moon seven hours after the Dec. 14, 2013 touchdown.
The 1200 kg stationary lander is expected to return science data about the Moon and telescopic observations of the Earth and celestial objects for at least one year.
Chang’e-3 and Yutu landed on a thick deposit of volcanic material.
Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover – from Above And Below
Composite view shows China’s Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover from Above And Below (orbit and surface) – lander color panorama (top) and orbital view from NASA’s LRO orbiter (bottom). Chang’e-3 lander color panorama shows Yutu rover after it drove down the ramp to the moon’s surface and began driving around the landers right side to the south. Yellow lines connect craters seen in the lander panorama and the LROC image from LRO (taken at a later date after the rover had moved), red lines indicate approximate field of view of the lander panorama. Credit: CNSA/NASA/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo/Mark Robinson
They were designed to conduct their science investigations and work independently of one another.
China can be proud of its magnificent space flight accomplishment.
Chang’e-3 was the first spacecraft from Earth to soft land on the Moon in nearly four decades since the touchdown of the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 sample return spacecraft back in 1976.
America’s last visit to the Moon’s surface occurred with the manned Apollo 17 landing mission – crewed by astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt , who coincidentally ascended from the lunar soil on Dec. 14, 1972 – exactly 41 years before Chang’e-3.
China’s follow on Chang’e-4 Moon lander is due to blastoff in 2015.
Surely the science and engineering team will incorporate valuable lessons learned.
China is only the 3rd country in the world to successfully soft land a spacecraft on Earth’s nearest neighbor after the United States and the Soviet Union.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Chang’e-3, Orion, Orbital Sciences, SpaceX, commercial space, LADEE, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
