‘Snowman’ Shape of Distant Ultima Thule Revealed While China Lands on Far Side of the Moon in Space WORLD FIRST
Today everybody is discussing two major space news about China’s landing on the far side of the Moon and the pictures of snowman-like Ultima Thule.
So stay with Nexter.org to know more.
On another side of Moon
In a historic first, China has successfully landed a rover on the far side of the moon, Chinese state media announced Thursday, a huge milestone for the nation as it attempts to position itself as a leading space power.
At 10:26 Beijing time (02:26 GMT), the un-crewed Chang’e-4 probe touched down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, state media said. It is carrying instruments to analyse the unexplored region’s geology, as well to conduct biological experiments.
State media reported the rover transmitted back the world’s first close range image of the far side of the moon. Six hours after touchdown, the rover will descend from the lander onto the moon’s surface, mission spokesman Yu Guobin told CCTV.
Source: NASA
The far side of the moon is the hemisphere that never faces earth, due to the moon’s rotation. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the “dark side of the moon,” even though it receives just as much sunlight as its earth-facing side.
The farthest object humanity has ever explored looks like a giant snowman
On New Year’s Day, scientists flew NASA’s nuclear-powered New Horizons probe past a mysterious, mountain-sized object.
The space rock is known formally as (486958) 2014 MU69, though it’s more commonly referred to as “Ultima Thule”. It’s located more than 4 billion miles from Earth and 1 billion miles beyond Pluto, making MU69 the farthest object humanity has ever explored up close.
An earlier image of the spinning ball of dust and ice, captured by the spacecraft from about 500,000 kilometres out, was so fuzzy and grainy Dr Stern told those gathered at the press conference it was “OK to laugh”.
Source: NASA
On Wednesday, researchers giddily revealed the first photographic spoils of their unprecedented mission.
It has now been confirmed Ultima Thule is red in colour, “a lot like the Mordor Macula region of Pluto’s large moon, Charon,” co-investigator Carly Howett said.
“It’s a snowman,” Alan Stern, who leads the New Horizons mission, said of the object’s shape during a press conference on Wednesday.
Source: NASA
Stern explained that MU69 appears to be what’s technically called a contact binary, or “two completely separate objects now joined together.”
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