RS Puppis puts on a spectacular light show

ESA - Hubble Space Telescope logo.

17 December 2013

Hubble image of variable star RS Puppis

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed the variable star RS Puppis over a period of five weeks, showing the star growing brighter and dimmer as it pulsates. These pulsations have created a stunning example of a phenomenon known as a light echo, where light appears to reverberate through the murky environment around the star.

For most of its life, a star is pretty stable, slowly consuming the fuel at its core to keep it shining brightly.

The location of RS Puppis within the Milky Way (artist’s impression)

However, once most of the hydrogen that stars use as fuel has been consumed, some stars evolve into very different beasts — pulsating stars. They become unstable, expanding and shrinking over a number of days or weeks and growing brighter and dimmer as they do so.

Wide-field image of RS Puppis (ground-based image)

A new and spectacular Hubble image shows RS Puppis, a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable [1]. As variable stars go, Cepheids have comparatively long periods. RS Puppis, for example, varies in brightness by almost a factor of five every 40 or so days.

RS Puppis is unusual as it is shrouded by a nebula — thick, dark clouds of gas and dust. Hubble observed this star and its murky environment over a period of five weeks in 2010, capturing snapshots at different stages in its cycle and enabling scientists to create a time-lapse video of this ethereal object (heic1323a).

3D visualisation of RS Puppis (artist's impression)

The apparent motion shown in these Hubble observations is an example of a phenomenon known as a light echo [2]. The dusty environment around RS Puppis enables this effect to be shown with stunning clarity. As the star expands and brightens, we see some of the light after it is reflected from progressively more distant shells of dust and gas surrounding the star, creating the illusion of gas moving outwards. This reflected light has further to travel, and so arrives at the Earth after light that travels straight from star to telescope [3]. This is analogous to sound bouncing off surrounding objects, causing the listener to hear an audible echo.

Zooming in on variable star RS Puppis

While this effect is certainly striking in itself, there is another important scientific reason to observe Cepheids like RS Puppis. The period of their pulsations is known to be directly connected to their intrinsic brightness, a property that allows astronomers to use them as cosmic distance markers. A few years ago, astronomers used the light echo around RS Puppis to measure its distance from us, obtaining the most accurate measurement of a Cepheid's distance (eso0805). Studying stars like RS Puppis helps us to measure and understand the vast scale of the Universe.

Panning across variable star RS Puppis

Notes:

[1] RS Puppis is over ten times more massive than our Sun, and around 15 000 times more luminous. It lies around 6500 light-years away from us.

[2] This light echo enabled astronomers to measure the distance to RS Puppis very accurately back in 2008. This measurement is the most accurate ever calculated for a Cepheid.

[3] This effect can make it appear that this propagation of light is happening at speeds greater than the speed of light, but this is just an illusion.
Notes for editors

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Links:

Hubble site: http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Images of Hubble: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/category/spacecraft/

NASA/STScI press release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/51

Videos:

Light echoes around RS Puppis: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1323a/

Hubblecast 71: Visible echoes around RS Puppis: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1323b/

Morph of the light echo around RS Puppis: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1323c/

Light echoes around RS Puppis (labelled): http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1323d/

Images, Text,  Credits: ESO/NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-Hubble/Europe Collaboration. Acknowledgment: H. Bond (STScI and Penn State University). Digitized Sky Survey 2/Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin. Videos: NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser/NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2, Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org). Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University)Music: movetwo.

Doubling Down With Rare White Dwarf Systems

NASA - Chandra X-ray Observatory patch / ESA - XXM-Newton Mission patch.

17 December 2013

In the middle of the twentieth century, an unusual star was spotted in the constellation of Canes Venatici (Latin for “hunting dogs”). Years later, astronomers determined that this object, dubbed AM Canum Venaticorum (or, AM CVn, for short), was, in fact, two stars. These stars revolve around each other every 18 minutes, and are predicted to generate gravitational waves -- ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein.

The name AM CVn came to represent a new class of objects where one white dwarf star is pulling matter from another very compact companion star, such as a second white dwarf. (White dwarf stars are dense remains of sun-like stars that have run out of fuel and collapsed to the size of the Earth.) The pairs of stars in AM CVn systems orbit each other extremely rapidly, whipping around one another in an hour, and in one case as quickly as five minutes. By contrast, the fastest orbiting planet in our solar system, Mercury, orbits the sun once every 88 days.

Despite being known for almost 50 years, the question has remained: where do AM CVn systems come from? New X-ray and optical observations have begun to answer that with the discovery of the first known systems of double stars that astronomers think will evolve into AM CVn systems.

The two binary systems -- known by their shortened names of J0751 and J1741 -- were observed in X-rays by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton telescope. Observations at optical wavelengths were made using the McDonald Observatory’s 2.1-meter telescope in Texas, and the Mt. John Observatory 1.0-meter telescopes in New Zealand.

Images Credits: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

The artist’s illustration depicts what these systems are like now and what may happen to them in the future. The top panel shows the current state of the binary that contains one white dwarf (on the right) with about one-fifth the mass of the sun and another much heavier and more compact white dwarf about five or more times as massive (unlike sun-like stars, heavier white dwarfs are smaller).

As the two white dwarfs orbit around each other, gravitational waves – that is, ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein – will be given off causing the orbit to become tighter. Eventually the smaller, heavier white dwarf will start pulling matter from the larger, lighter one, as shown in the middle panel, forming an AM CVn system. This process continues until so much matter accumulates on the more massive white dwarf that a thermonuclear explosion may occur in about 100 million years.

One possibility is that the thermonuclear explosion could destroy the larger white dwarf completely in what astronomers call a Type Ia supernova (the type of supernova used to mark large distances across the Universe by serving as so-called standard candles.) However, it’s more likely that a thermonuclear explosion will occur only on the surface of the star, leaving it scarred but intact. The resulting outburst is likely to be about one tenth the brightness of a Type Ia supernova.  Such outbursts have been named -- somewhat tongue-in-cheek -- as .Ia supernovae. Such .Ia outbursts have been observed in other galaxies, but J0751 and J1741 are the first binary stars known which can produce .Ia outbursts in the future.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Image Credit: NASA / CXC

The optical observations were critical in identifying the two white dwarfs in these systems and ascertaining their masses. The X-ray observations were needed to rule out the possibility that J0751 and J1741 contained neutron stars. A neutron star -- which would disqualify it from being a possible parent to an AM CVn system -- would give off strong X-ray emission due to its magnetic field and rapid rotation. Neither Chandra nor XMM-Newton detected any X-rays from these systems.

AM CVn systems are of interest to scientists because they are predicted to be sources of gravitational waves, as noted above. This is important because even though such waves have yet to be detected, many scientists and engineers are working on instruments that should be able to detect them in the near future. This will open a significant new observational window to the universe.

ESA's XXM-Newton telescope. Image Credit: ESA

The paper reporting these results is available online [http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.6359] and is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters. The authors are Mukremin Kilic from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK; J.J. Hermes from the University of Texas at Austin in TX; Alexandros Gianninas from the University of Oklahoma; Warren Brown from Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA; Craig Heinke from University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada; Marcel Ag¨ueros from Columbia University in New York, NY; Paul Chote and Denis Sullivan from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; and Keaton Bell and Samuel Harrold from University of Texas at Austin.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/

ESA’s XMM-Newton telescope: http://sci.esa.int/xmm-newton/

Chandra on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/sets/72157606205297786/

Images (mentioned), Text,  Credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Dawn Creates Guide to Vesta's Hidden Attractions

NASA - Dawn Mission patch.

December 17, 2013

Flowing in, Flowing out of Aelia

Image above: This colorful composite image from NASA's Dawn mission shows the flow of material inside and outside a crater called Aelia on the giant asteroid Vesta. The area is around 14 degrees south latitude. The images that went into this composite were obtained by Dawn's framing camera from September to October 2011. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAMPS/DLR/IDA.

Some beauty is revealed only at a second glance. When viewed with the human eye, the giant asteroid Vesta, which was the object of scrutiny by the Dawn spacecraft from 2011 to 2012, is quite unspectacular color-wise. Vesta looks grayish, pitted by a variety of large and small craters.

But scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, have re-analyzed the images of this giant asteroid obtained by Dawn's framing camera. They assigned colors to different wavelengths of light and, in the process, revealed in unprecedented detail not only geological structures that are invisible to the naked eye, but also landscapes of incomparable beauty.

Antonia in Blue

Image above: This colorized composite image from NASA's Dawn mission shows the crater Antonia, which lies in the enormous Rheasilvia basin in the southern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta. The area lies around 58 degrees south latitude. Antonia has a diameter of 11 miles (17 kilometers). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAMPS/DLR/IDA.

Researchers at Max Planck can now see structures such as melts from impacts, craters buried by quakes and foreign material brought by space rocks, visible with a resolution of 200 feet (60 meters) per pixel.

"The key to these images is the seven color filters of the camera system on board the spacecraft," said Andreas Nathues, the framing camera team lead at Max Planck. Since different minerals reflect light of different wavelengths to different degrees, the filters help reveal compositional differences that remain hidden without them. In addition, scientists calibrated the data so that the finest variations in brightness can be seen.

Vesta's Many Colors at Sextilia

Image above: This colorful image from NASA's Dawn mission shows material northwest of the crater Sextilia on the giant asteroid Vesta. Sextilia, located around 30 degrees south latitude, is at the bottom right of this image. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAMPS/DLR/IDA.

In the new colorized images, different colors indicate different materials on the surface of Vesta. They reveal impressive formations and a wide range of geological diversity, said Nathues. But above all, the color-coded images are impressive because of their beauty.

"No artist could paint something like that. Only nature can do this," said Martin Hoffman, a member of the framing camera team also at Max Planck. Pictures of the crater Aelia, the crater Antonia and an area near the crater Sextilia show some of Vesta's most impressive sites.

Dawn visited Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. The spacecraft is currently on its way to its second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Dawn at Vesta. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR and NASA.

More information on Dawn is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / JPL / Jia-Rui Cook / Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research / Birgit Krummheuer.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Arctic sea ice up from record low

ESA - CryoSat Mission logo.

16 December 2013

Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat satellite show that the volume of Arctic sea ice has significantly increased this autumn.

The volume of ice measured this autumn is about 50% higher compared to last year.

In October 2013, CryoSat measured about 9000 cubic km of sea ice – a notable increase compared to 6000 cubic km in October 2012.

Over the last few decades, satellites have shown a downward trend in the area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice. However, the actual volume of sea ice has proven difficult to determine because it moves around and so its thickness can change.

Autumn sea-ice thickness from CryoSat 2010–2013

CryoSat was designed to measure sea-ice thickness across the entire Arctic Ocean, and has allowed scientists, for the first time, to monitor the overall change in volume accurately.

About 90% of the increase is due to growth of multiyear ice – which survives through more than one summer without melting – with only 10% growth of first year ice. Thick, multiyear ice indicates healthy Arctic sea-ice cover.

This year’s multiyear ice is now on average about 20%, or around 30 cm, thicker than last year.

“One of the things we’d noticed in our data was that the volume of ice year-to-year was not varying anything like as much as the ice extent – at least in 2010, 2011 and 2012,” said Rachel Tilling from the UK’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, who led the study.

ESA's CryoSat ice mission

“We didn’t expect the greater ice extent left at the end of this summer’s melt to be reflected in the volume. But it has been, and the reason is related to the amount of multiyear ice in the Arctic.”

While this increase in ice volume is welcome news, it does not indicate a reversal in the long-term trend.

“It’s estimated that there was around 20 000 cubic kilometres of Arctic sea ice each October in the early 1980s, and so today’s minimum still ranks among the lowest of the past 30 years,” said Professor Andrew Shepherd from University College London, a co-author of the study.

The findings from a team of UK researchers at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling were presented last week at the American Geophysical Union’s autumn meeting in San Francisco, California.

Sea ice

“We are very pleased that we were able to present these results in time for the conference despite some technical problems we had with the satellite in October, which are now completely solved,” said Tommaso Parrinello, ESA’s CryoSat Mission Manager.

In October, CryoSat’s difficulties with its power system threatened the continuous supply of data, but normal operations resumed just over a week later.

With the seasonal freeze-up now underway, CryoSat will continue its routine measurement of sea ice. Over the coming months, the data will reveal just how much this summer’s increase has affected winter ice volumes.

Related links:

UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC): http://www.nerc.ac.uk/

University College London: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/

AGU Fall Meeting 2013: http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/

CryoSat: an icy mission: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat/CryoSat_an_icy_mission

Images, Text, Credits: ESA / UCL / AOES Medialab.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA Works Towards Dec. 19 Cygnus Launch; Possible Repair Space Walks

ISS - International Space Station patch.

Dec. 16, 2013

NASA engineers continued efforts Sunday to regulate temperatures in one of two cooling loops on the International Space Station affected by the malfunction last week of a flow control valve in a cooling pump on the station’s starboard truss. A Flow Control Valve in the starboard Pump Module that enables the flow of ammonia to cool station systems stopped positioning itself properly last Wednesday, resulting in a drop of temperature in Cooling Loop A. That necessitated the shutdown of some support systems on the station. The temperature must be warm enough in the cooling lines to allow the system’s heat exchangers to dissipate excess heat from the station through the external radiators on the complex. The primary heat rejection capability for station systems shifted last week to Cooling Loop B that uses a fully operational Pump Module on the port truss.

Efforts overnight to fine-tune the position of an isolation valve associated with the flow control system in the Pump Module into a “sweet spot” to assist the faulty Flow Control Valve in regulating the affected cooling loop’s temperatures were still being evaluated as engineers continue to review the data, valve positioning techniques and additional methods of temperature management in the loop.

Image above: Flight Engineer Doug Wheelock worked outside the International Space Station in August 2010 to install a spare pump module.

Meanwhile, parallel work is ongoing to either enable Orbital Sciences Corp. to launch its Antares rocket and the Cygnus cargo craft from the Wallops Flight Facility, Va. Thursday night at 9:19 p.m. EST on its first resupply mission to the space station, or for Expedition 38 astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins to mount a suite of spacewalks beginning Thursday to replace the faulty pump.

The International Space Station Program continues to keep both options on the table pending further engineering analysis and troubleshooting efforts on the station’s cooling system.

This image provides a closer look at the location of the International Space Station's starboard pump module. Image Credit: NASA.

While the engineering work on the station’s cooling loop continued, technicians at Wallops prepared to load time-critical science cargo in the Cygnus spacecraft Sunday afternoon to preserve several days of launch opportunities beginning Thursday night. The current schedule calls for the vehicle fairing to be installed on the Antares upper stage around Cygnus on Monday. The Antares rocket and attached Cygnus are scheduled to rollout to the launch pad at Wallops in the wee hours Tuesday.

Meanwhile, aboard the space station, Mastracchio and Hopkins continued to prepare their spacesuits and other equipment in the Quest airlock Sunday should they be called upon to conduct spacewalks to replace the Pump Module.

For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images, Text, Credit: NASA.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Iran launches second monkey into space

ISA - Iranian Space Agency logo.

Dec. 15, 2013

Iran said Saturday it has successfully sent a monkey into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.

Iranian Space Agency Pajohesh rocket on the lanch-pad

Iran's state TV said that the launch of the rocket dubbed Pajohesh, or Research in Farsi, was Iran's first use of liquid fuel. It reached a height of 120 kilometers (72 miles). It said the monkey, named Fargam or Auspicious, was returned to earth safely.

TV footage showed the rocket blasting off and then showed the monkey, strapped snugly into a seat. The report said Fargam's capsule parachuted safely to earth after detaching from the rocket in a mission that lasted 15 minutes.

Iran send second monkey on space

Iran frequently claims technological breakthroughs that are impossible to independently verify. The Islamic Republic has said it aims to send an astronaut into space.

"The launch of Pajohesh is another long step getting the Islamic Republic of Iran closer to sending a man into space," the official IRNA news agency said.

Fargam is a male monkey of rhesus macaque race with brown fur and a pink face. The primate weighs three kilograms and has a height of 56 centimeters (22 inches). Iranian scientists say a bigger monkey or another animal will be tested in the next space flight.

Iranian space monkey Fargam

State TV said the rocket was equipped with new features including sonic sensors and electronic devices that enabled scientists to monitor the monkey, its vital signs and voice.

Mohammad Ebrahimi said Iran's first use of liquid fuel meant the rocket's speed was about half that of a rocket using solid fuel.

Iran said it sent its first monkey into space in January, reaching the same height of 120 kilometers (72 miles).

"The rocket carrying the first monkey used solid fuel and had a high speed. But a liquid fuel rocket has a lower speed and is better for the safety and protection of the living creature because it causes less pressure," IRNA quoted him as saying. "The capsule was equipped with a shock absorber to provide better protection for the monkey."

Iranian space capsule landed

Ebrahimi said the monkey's appetite showed it was in good health after the journey.

Iran aerospace program is a source of national pride. It's also one of the pillars of its aspirations to be seen as the technological hub for Islamic and developing countries.

The U.S. and its allies worry that technology from the space program could also be used to develop long-range missiles that could potentially be armed with nuclear warheads.

In the January mission, one of two official packages of photos of the simian space traveler depicted the wrong monkey, causing some international observers to wonder whether the monkey had died in space or that the launch didn't go well.

But Iranian officials later said one set of pictures showed an archive photo of one of the alternate monkeys. They said three to five monkeys are simultaneously tested for such a flight and two or three are chosen for the launch. Finally, the one that is best suited for the mission is chosen for the voyage.

The Islamic Republic has not revealed where the rocket launch took place, but it has a major satellite launch complex near Semnan, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Tehran.

Iran says it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation, improve telecommunications and expand military surveillance of the region.

For more information about Iranian Space Agency (ISA), visit: http://www.isa.ir/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Iranian Space Agency (ISA) / Reuters /AP.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

China's Jade Rabbit rover rolls on to Moon's surface

CNSA - China National Space Administration logo.

Dec. 14, 2013

China's Jade Rabbit robot rover has driven off its landing module and on to the Moon's surface.

The robotic vehicle rolled down a ramp lowered by the lander and on to the volcanic plain known as Sinus Iridum.

Earlier on Saturday, the landing module containing the rover fired its thrusters to perform the first soft landing on the Moon since 1976.

Image above: The Jade Rabbit, seen in this artist's impression, is the first wheeled vehicle on the Moon since the 1970s. Image Credit: CNSA.

The touchdown in the Moon's northern hemisphere marks the latest step in China's ambitious space programme.

The lander will operate there for a year, while the rover is expected to work for some three months.

The Chang'e-3 mission landed some 12 days after being launched atop a Chinese-developed Long March 3B rocket from Xichang in the country's south.

China Probe Lands On The Moon

The official Xinhua news service reported that the craft began its descent just after 1300 GMT (2100 Beijing time), touching down in Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows) 11 minutes later.

"I was lucky enough to see a prototype rover in Shanghai a few years ago - it's a wonderful technological achievement to have landed," Prof Andrew Coates, from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told BBC News.

Chang'e-3 is the third unmanned rover mission to touch down on the lunar surface, and the first to go there in more than 40 years. The last was an 840kg (1,900lb) Soviet vehicle known as Lunokhod-2, which was kept warm by polonium-210.

But the six-wheeled Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust.

China Moon Mission description. Image Credit: AFP

Its name - chosen in an online poll of 3.4 million voters - derives from an ancient Chinese myth about a rabbit living on the moon as the pet of the lunar goddess Chang'e.

The rover and lander are powered by solar panels but some sources suggest they also carry radioisotope heating units (RHUs), containing plutonium-238 to keep them warm during the cold lunar night.

Reports suggest the lander and rover will photograph each other at some point on Sunday.

According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise. It will also scout valuable mineral resources that could one day be mined.

China's Yutu  Jade Rabbit Lunar Rover lands on Moon

"China's lunar programme is an important component of mankind's activities to explore [the] peaceful use of space," Sun Huixian, a space engineer with the Chinese lunar programme, told Xinhua.

After this, a mission to bring samples of lunar soil back to Earth is planned for 2017. And this may set the stage for further robotic missions, and - perhaps - a crewed lunar mission in the 2020s.

Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington DC, said China's space programme was a good fit with China's concept of "comprehensive national power". This might be described as a measure of a state's all-round capabilities.

Image above: The rover will be exploring a flat volcanic plain known as Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows). Image Credit: AP.

But he said that China did not see itself as being in a "space race" with anyone else. "I'm comparing it specifically to how the US and the Soviets were behaving in the late 1950s and 1960s when you had space launches almost every month.

"Look at how often the Chinese do manned missions - it's almost every other year."

Instead, the country is methodically and patiently building up the key elements needed for an advanced space programme - from launchers to manned missions in Earth orbit to unmanned planetary craft - and it is investing heavily.

Mr Cheng added: "China is saying: 'We are doing something that only two other countries have done before - the US and the Soviet Union."

The landing site of Sinus Iridum (Latin for Bay of Rainbows) is a flat volcanic plain, part of a larger feature known as Mare Imbrium that forms the right eye of the "Man in the Moon".

For more information about China National Space Administration (CNSA), visit: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/n615709/cindex.html

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: CNSA / AP / AFP / BBC News / Paul Rincon.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch