Posted on 12/01/2020 8:32:14 PM PST by BenLurkin
Its robotic Chang'e-5 mission touched down a short while ago with the aim of collecting samples of rock and dust to bring back to Earth.
The venture has targeted Mons Rümker, a high volcanic complex in a nearside region known as Oceanus Procellarum.
The lander is expected to spend the next couple of days examining its surroundings and gathering up surface materials.
It has a number of instruments to facilitate this, including a camera, spectrometer, radar, a scoop and a drill.
The intention is to package about 2kg of "soil", or regolith, to send up to an orbiting vehicle that can then transport the samples to Earth.
Unlike the launch of the mission a week ago, the landing was not covered live by Chinese TV channels.
Only after the touchdown was confirmed did they break into their programming to relay the news.
Images taken on the descent were quickly released with the final frame showing one of the probe's legs casting a shadow on to the dusty lunar surface.
The US space agency congratulated China. Nasa's top science official, Dr Thomas Zurbuchen, said he hoped the international research community would eventually get the chance to analyse any samples sent home.
A total of just under 400kg of rock and soil were retrieved by American Apollo astronauts and the Soviets' robotic Luna programme - the vast majority of these materials coming back with the crewed missions.
But all these samples were very old - more than three billion years in age. The Mons Rümker materials, on the other hand, promise to be no more than 1.2 or 1.3 billion years old.
The samples will also allow scientists to more precisely calibrate the "chronometer" they use to age surfaces on the inner Solar System planets.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
It would not shock me to learn that China printed hundreds of thousands of pre filled-in ballots for JoE. Would a ballot scanning machine be able to tell the difference between a ballot filled-in with a pen or sharpie and one that was printed? Is there a watermark on the paper to verify that it is genuine? I haven’t heard anything about that lately.
The chicoms faked all of it ! They filmed the whole thing in the Gobi Desert...
big place
“Wouldn’t it be great to make everybody think we had landed on the moon?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw
;)
Gotta be far away from those gazillions of Chinese Pheasant’s so the don’t have to be paid for acting as The Grey’s;)
I bet we obtain the watermarked paper from China, like everything else.
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