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21 February, 2019
Chang’e-4’s landing site named Statio Tianhe
The International Astronomical Union has approved official names for five sites on the far side of the Moon. Chang’e-4’s landing site was named Statio Tianhe from Statio – Latin for outpost, station, and Tianhe – Chinese name for the Milky Way. Zhinyu, Hegu and Tianjin correspond to characters in the folk tale “The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl”, which references Tianhe as the sky river that separated Niulang and Zhinyu. Video Credits: China Central Television (CCTV)/China National Space Administration (CNSA)/SciNews.
Image above: Chang'e 4 lander-rover relayed back by Queqiao lunar satellite (Magpie Bridge).Image Credits: CASC/CNSA.
Chang'e 4 Lander: A Closer Look
Just after midnight (UTC) on February 1, 2019, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed nearly overhead the Chang'e 4 landing site. From an altitude of 82 kilometers the LROC Narrow Angle Camera pixel scale was 0.85 meters (33 inches), allowing a sharper view of the lander and Yutu-2 rover. At the time the rover was 29 meters northwest of the lander, but the rover has likely moved since the image was acquired. This view has close to the smallest pixel size possible in the current LRO orbit. In the future however, LROC will continue to image the site as the lighting changes and the rover roves!
Image above: Looking down on the Chang'e 4 landing site; lander is just beyond tip of large arrow, rover at tip of small arrow. Image is 850 meters (2789 feet) across, LROC M1303619844LR. Image Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 seen by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of the Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover in the Von Kármán crater. Chang’e-4’s landing site was named Statio Tianhe by the International Astronomical Union. Video Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/CNSA/CPEL/SciNews.
Chang'e 4, the second Chinese lunar lander, set down on a relatively small farside mare basalt deposit that is extensively mixed with highland ejecta from the nearby and relatively young Finsen crater (73 kilometer or 45 mile diameter). Scientists have long wanted to know the composition of farside basalts; are they significantly different from the nearside basalts? According to the China National Space Administration, Chang'e 4 instrumentation includes the visible near infrared spectrometer (VNIS) which takes measurements that can be used to address this question. This new information from the surface will provide important ground truth, while the combination of on-surface and orbital measurements provides synergy that will advance knowledge of the farside.
Image above: Chang'e 3 (left, M147290066LR) and Chang'e 4 (right, M1303619844LR) are very similar in size and instrumentation. The Chang'e 3 image looks a bit fuzzier because the landing site is at 44° north latitude where the LRO orbit is about twice as far from the Moon relative to the Chang'e 4 site at 45° south latitude (1.6 meter pixels enlarged to 0.85 meter pixels; 5.2 feet vs. 2.8 feet). Each panel is 463 meters (1520 feet) wide, large arrows indicate landers and small arrows indicate rovers. Image Credits: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University.
Image above: Illustration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image Credits: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Related links:
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html
For more information about China National Space Administration (CNSA), visit: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/
Videos (mentioned), Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Karl Hille/Goddard Space Flight Center/Nancy Neal Jones/Arizona State University/Mark Robinson/SciNews/Orbiter.ch Aerospace.
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