On January 3, 2019 at 02:26 UTC, the Chinese “Chang’e 4” space probe landed in the 180- kilometer-wide Von Karman crater, located in the southern hemisphere on the back side of the moon. It is the first successful landing on the far side of the moon in the history of the Mankind. Chang’e 4 took the first picture from the surface of the far side of the moon at around 03:40 UTC, showing a small crater in the foreground. The mission’s rover was named “Yutu-2”, after the mobile robot named “Yutu” that flew on the “Chang’e 3” mission to the moon in 2013. Yutu means “jade rabbit” in Chinese, and is the name of the pet rabbit of the moon goddess Chang’e in Chinese folklore, the source of the name of China’s lunar missions. Attachments: |