Chin sent a “Chang’e-6” exploration vehicle to space on May 3 to collect rock and soil samples from the dark side of the Moon, and it has started to send its first photos. Recently, China has been prominent in space missions, taking a new step to surpass the US. China launched an unmanned spacecraft for a mission lasting about two months to collect rocks and soil from the far side of the Moon. The “Chang’e-6” mission landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which is located on the far side of the Moon and cannot be observed from Earth. Thus, China became the first country to land a rover on the dark side of the Moon. According to the announcement made, the samples collected by the vehicle successfully docked with the orbiting spacecraft. If no issues arise, the collected samples will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on June 25 and land with a parachute.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) shared images showing the first lunar and rock samples collected within the scope of the mission. The images capture the surface and landscape of the far side of the Moon, which is unseen by people on Earth. The term “dark side” is given to the far side of the Moon that cannot be seen from Earth, as the Moon rotates at the same speed around its axis as it does around Earth, always keeping the same side facing Earth. The term “dark” refers to the lack of knowledge about this region compared to the near side of the Moon.
The Soviet Union’s “Luna” satellite first photographed the dark side of the Moon in 1959, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences published a detailed atlas describing the dark side of the Moon in 1960. Astronauts who participated in the US’s 1968 manned moon mission, “Apollo 8,” were the first humans to see the dark side of the Moon firsthand.
