Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Saturday 5 January 2019
China lands spacecraft on 'dark' side of moon in world first

By KEN MORITSUGU raced to the front," said and mineral composition
Associated Press Hou Xiyun, a professor at of the terrain above and
BEIJING (AP) — China's Nanjing University's school below the surface. "The
burgeoning space pro- of astronomy and space far side of the moon is a
gram achieved a first on science. rare quiet place that is free
Thursday: a landing on the He added that China has from interference from ra-
so-called dark side of the Mars, Jupiter and aster- dio signals from Earth," mis-
moon that brings the coun- oids in its sights: "There's no sion spokesman Yu Guobin
try closer to its goal of be- doubt that our nation will said, according to the offi-
coming a space power. go farther and farther." cial Xinhua News Agency.
Three nations — the United In 2013, Chang'e 3, the pre- "This probe can fill the gap
States, the former Soviet decessor craft to the cur- of low-frequency obser-
Union and more recently rent mission, made the first vation in radio astronomy
China — have sent space- moon landing since the for- and will provide important
craft to the near side of the mer Soviet Union's Luna 24 information for studying the
moon, which faces Earth, in 1976. The United States origin of stars and nebula
but this landing is the first- is the only country that has evolution." One challenge
ever on the far side. successfully sent a person of operating on the far side
The China National Space to the moon, though China of the moon is communi-
Administration said the is considering a crewed cating with Earth. China
10:26 a.m. touchdown of mission too. launched a relay satellite in
the Chang'e 4 craft has For now, it plans to send May so that Chang'e 4 can
"opened up a new chap- a Chang'e 5 probe to the send back information.
ter in human lunar explora- In this photo provided on Jan. 3, 2019, by the China National moon next year and have China conducted its first
tion." Space Administration via Xinhua News Agency, an image tak- it return to Earth with sam- crewed space mission in
A photo taken at 11:40 a.m. en by China's Chang'e-4 probe after its landing. ples — also not done since 2003, becoming only the
and sent back by Chang'e Associated Press the Soviet mission in 1976. third country to do so after
4 shows a small crater and The moon's far side isn't Russia and the U.S. It has put
a barren surface that ap- broadly, to cement the na- of Chang'e 4 as one of the always dark but is some- a pair of space stations into
pears to be illuminated by tion's position as a regional nation's major achieve- times called the dark side orbit and plans to launch a
a light from the lunar ex- and global power. ments in 2018. The land- because it faces away Mars rover in the mid-2020s.
plorer. Its name comes from "The space dream is part of ing on Thursday was an- from Earth and is relatively Its space program suffered
that of a Chinese goddess the dream to make China nounced to the public by unknown. It has a different a rare setback last year
who, according to legend, stronger," President Xi Jin- state broadcaster CCTV at composition than the near with the failed launch of its
has lived on the moon for ping said in 2013, shortly the top of the noon news. side, where previous mis- Long March 5 rocket.
millennia. after becoming China's "On the whole, China's sions have landed. Wu Weiren, the chief de-
The landing highlights Chi- leader. space technology still lags Chang'e 4, a combined signer of the China Lunar
na's growing ambitions to In year-end wrap-ups, Chi- behind the West, but with lander and rover, will make Exploration Project, called
rival the U.S., Russia and nese media and officials the landing on the far side astronomical observations the landing a trailblazing
Europe in space, and more hailed the Dec. 8 launch of the moon, we have and probe the structure milestone.q

Side of the moon you can't

see 'is not dark, it's just far'

By SETH BORENSTEIN is not dark, it's just far," said Every semester, Purdue Uni-
WASHINGTON (AP) — De- Harvard astronomer Avi versity lunar and planetary
spite the name of Pink Loeb. "It's a mistake." scientist Jay Melosh dem-
Floyd's best-selling album, The moon is what scientists onstrates how the far side
the side of the moon you call "tidally locked " which gets light using a bright light
can't see isn't always dark. means the same side al- as the sun and students
But it is far. ways faces us, while an- playing the roles of the
So scientists call the area other side always faces moon and the Earth. But
where a Chinese space- away, Loeb said. When students still get it wrong on
craft just landed the far Earth views a darkened the midterm, calling it the
side, not the dark side. new moon, the far side is lit. dark side.
"The other side sees the sun When there's a full moon in Melosh traces the myth
sometimes. The other side our sky, the far side is dark. back to a Walt Disney tele-
vision special in 1955 that
talked about it always be-
ing dark on the other side
of the moon and futuristic This composite image made available by NASA in 2011 shows
astronauts dropping flares. the far side of Earth's moon.
The term dark side really Associated Press
took off in 1973 with the
Pink Floyd's mesmerizing al- far side, there have been mer Soviet Union craft in
bum "The Dark Side of the plenty of detailed photo- 1959. NASA's Apollo 8 astro-
Moon." graphs taken by orbiting nauts saw it first when they
While China is the first to spacecraft. The first grainy orbited the moon 50 years
land a spacecraft on the pictures came from a for- ago.q