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India's Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft delivers its first, gorgeous moon photo

That's amore, er, Mare Orientale.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
Amanda Kooser
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This image marks the Apollo crater and the Mare Orientale basin. 

ISRO

The moon is so hot right now. Everyone wants to go there, including the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. Chandrayaan-2, which launched in July, just sent back its first image of its destination. 

India's spacecraft plans to land robots on the lunar south pole for the first time. It's a fascinating and icy place that NASA is eyeing as the destination for its crewed Artemis moon mission in 2024.  

ISRO tweeted out the moon view on Thursday. Chandrayaan-2 snapped the portrait from a height of 1,650 miles (2,650 kilometers) above the lunar surface Wednesday. The space agency annotated the image to show the locations of the large Apollo crater and the Mare Orientale basin.

Chandrayaan-2 is made up of a lunar orbiter, lander and rover. The spacecraft successfully entered lunar orbit earlier this week and will aim to deliver its lander and rover to the surface in early September.

Touching down safely on the moon is hard, as Israel's Beresheet mission discovered when it crash-landed into the lunar surface in April. 

If successful, India will become only the fourth country -- besides the US, the Soviet Union and China -- to soft-land on the moon. As we wait for the big day, we can enjoy Chandrayaan-2's spectacular views from orbit.

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