At 1.11pm UTC today (8.11 am EST) the Chang’e-3 mission made a successful soft landing in an area toward the edge of the Sinus Iridum and Mare Imbrium – shown in this image by the red flag.
At 1.11pm UTC today (8.11 am EST) the Chang'e-3 mission made a successful soft landing in an area toward the edge of the Sinus Iridum and Mare Imbrium - shown in this image by the red flag.
Landing site of Chang'e 3 on the Moon (Credit: www.new.cn).
That's on the nearside of the moon - marked in a red ellipse in the figure below.
Sinus Iridum
Next up will be the attempted deployment of Yutu (Jade Rabbit), a six-wheeled lunar rover - sending back real time video as it's driven across the lunar surface.
And what does it look like at the landing site? It looks like this, an early image from the lander.
View of Chang'e-3 landing site from it's monitoring camera (China National Space Administration/Associated Press)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Caleb A. Scharf is director of astrobiology at Columbia University. He is author and co-author of more than 100 scientific research articles in astronomy and astrophysics. His work has been featured in publications such as New Scientist, Scientific American, Science News, Cosmos Magazine, Physics Today and National Geographic. For many years he wrote the Life, Unbounded blog for Scientific American. Follow Caleb A. Scharf on Twitter
