CHINA HAS LANDED ON THE MOON (pics & video)

On Saturday 14 December 2013 at 1311 GMT, China’s first Moon lander, Chang’e 3, and its rover touched down on the lunar surface. 

China is the third nation to make a soft landing on the Moon, after the United States and the former Soviet Union. This is the first such landing in 37 years; the last one was performed by the Soviet Union in 1976...

The ‘Jade Rabbit’ rover, weighing 140 kilogrammes, separated from the larger landing vehicle on Sunday 15 December, about seven hours after the unmanned Chang'e 3 space probe touched down on an Earth-facing part of the Moon. 

The descent from lunar orbit to the moon's surface took about 12 minutes. Soon after the landing, Chang'e 3 deployed its solar arrays so that it could begin generating power for its mission.

The Jade Rabbit has already left deep traces on the lunar soil. The rover will now begin its survey of the Moon’s geological structure and surface, and will look for natural resources for three months. Meanwhile, the lander will carry out scientific explorations at its landing site for a year. 

The mission launched from southwest China on December 2, 2013, on a Long March-3B carrier rocket. The mission itself is named after a Chinese goddess of the Moon while the ‘Yutu’ rover (Jade Rabbit) is named for the goddess’ pet.

This mission is part of a wider-reaching Chinese space programme, which aims to eventually put a Chinese astronaut on the Moon. China sent its first male astronaut into space in 2003 and their first woman into space 16 June 2012. The country has successfully deployed two lunar missions that orbited the moon.

China launched a Mars-exploration space probe on 8 November 2011; unfortunately the burns needed to expel the probe from Earth’s orbit were not performed and the probe was declared lost. This has not deterred the people behind the China space programme however and there are plans for an uncrewed mission to Mars within the next twenty years. China plans to open a space station around 2020 and send an astronaut to the Moon after that.

Source:http://phys.org/news/2013-12-china-successfully-soft-lands-probe-moon.html#nRlv