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China's moon rover proves the moon has different rocks (update)
China's Jade Rabbit (Yutu) successfully came back from the dead after a serious malfunction in 2014. (*see update below) Scientists have finished analyzing the data China's moon rover Yutu beamed back sometime ago. As it turns out, the rocks the Jade Rabbit collected can reveal more about the moon's younger years when there were small volcanic eruptions all over the place. See, the Chang'e-3 probe that served as its ride to the moon in 2013 landed on a "relatively young" impact basin visible from Earth, giving Yutu the chance to collect samples that are only 3 billion-years-old. The samples brought back by the Apollo missions were as old as 4 billion years.
RIP: China's Jade Rabbit rover dies on the moon (update: it came back to life!)
After facing a series of troubles since its arrival on the moon, China's Jade Rabbit rover has been officially pronounced dead. China News Service broke the story earlier today, stating that the Chinese explorer, also known as Yutu, "could not be restored to full function." Jade Rabbit reportedly suffered mechanical problems last month, on January 25th, and was consequently never able to work properly again -- it was due to "the complicated lunar surface environment." This is a huge blow to the future of China's space program, one that aims to have an Earth-orbiting station and land a human on the moon within the next decade. Still, getting a rover to the moon is no easy feat, so the country has nothing to be ashamed of. Rest in peace, Yutu. Update: Well, in a strange turn of events, state-run news outlet Xinhua is reporting that Jade Rabbit "has come back to life." According to Pei Zhaoyu, a spokesperson with China's lunar program, the rover "went to sleep under abnormal status" but is now "back to its normal signal reception function." With connection established, experts believe there might still be hope for Yutu: "The rover stands a chance of being saved now that it is still alive," Zhaoyu told Xinhua.
China's Jade Rabbit rover lands on the moon (Update: pictures)
China has just entered a very exclusive club -- it's now the third country to have soft-landed vehicles on the moon. Its Chang'e 3 lander and accompanying Jade Rabbit rover successfully reached our celestial neighbor's Bay of Rainbows on Saturday. Jade Rabbit will now spend months studying the lunar surface, while its host will watch Earth and other objects in space. The mission should provide fresh scientific data to both China and other space agencies, but it's most useful in the short term as a revival of exploration efforts. There hasn't been a soft landing on the moon since 1976 -- China is kicking off a new phase of lunar science that will hopefully lead to a long-term human presence. Update: After only a day of puttering around its lunar landing site, the Jade Rabbit rover has already reportedly sent over 4600 images back to earth, although most of them haven't been released to the public. Care for a peek? We've posted one after the break.
China launches Jade Rabbit rover, kicks off Chang'e 3 moon mission
China began stage one of its Chang'e 3 mission yesterday afternoon by launching a Long March 3B rocket toward the troposphere, destined for the moon. The Jade Rabbit, a robotic rover, managed to hop along for the ride with intentions of roaming our rocky satellite's surfaces. Lunar touchdown is scheduled for December 14th, which marks the first time a craft will settle down on the ole' ball of cheese since the Soviet's Luna 24 mission in 1976. Between Virgin Galactic and the Google-backed Lunar X Prize competition, traveling throughout the universe may finally be less of a science fiction fantasy and more of an everyday reality -- one that China isn't ignoring. According to the deputy engineer-in-chief in charge of the second phase of China's lunar program, Sun Huixian, "China's space exploration will not stop at the moon... Our target is deep space."
