NASA spacecraft spots China's newest lander on the surface of the moon
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter snaps a picture of the Chang'e 5 lander looking like a needle in a haystack.
It takes a sharp eye to look down from orbit and spot a tiny lander on the moon's surface, but NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft pulled it off.
Arizona State University's LRO camera team released an impressive view of China's Chang'e 5 lander where it sits in a region called Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). The orbiter captured the image on Dec. 2, and ASU posted it last Friday.
Chang'e 5 appears as a spot of brightness against the darker moon surface.
The lander touched down in an area with a history of volcanic activity. "Similar to flood basalts on the Earth, this deposit was the result of a massive outpouring of highly fluid basaltic lavas. In the lunar case, this massive eruption occurred somewhere between one and two billion years ago," wrote LRO camera team member Mark Robinson in a statement on Friday.
The lander wasn't just sitting around after it arrived safely earlier this month. The machine scooped up some moon rocks and dust and launched them back into space for a return trip to Earth. If all goes well, the samples will be in the hands of scientists in mid-December.
The LRO has a history of spotting spacecraft on the moon. It documented the 2019 crash site of Israel's Beresheet mission and caught sight of China's Chang'e 4 lander on the far side of the moon. This latest image is further proof of the spacecraft's remarkable ability to win the lunar version of hide and seek.