Japan’s first moon lander has survived a 3rd freezing lunar night time, Japan’s space company mentioned Wednesday after receiving a picture from the system three months after it landed on the moon.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Company mentioned the lunar probe responded to a sign from the earth Tuesday night time, confirming it has survived one other weekslong lunar night time.
Temperatures can fall to minus 170 levels Celsius (minus 274 levels Fahrenheit) throughout a lunar night time, and rise to round 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) throughout a lunar day.
The probe, Good Lander for Investing Moon, or SLIM, reached the lunar floor on Jan. 20, making Japan the fifth nation to efficiently place a probe on the moon. SLIM on Jan. 20 landed the unsuitable method up with its solar panels initially unable to see the sun, and needed to be turned off inside hours, however powered on when the sun rose eight days later.
SLIM, which was tasked with testing Japan’s pinpoint touchdown know-how and accumulating geological information and pictures, was not designed to outlive lunar nights.
JAXA mentioned on the social media platform X that SLIM’s key capabilities are nonetheless working regardless of repeated harsh cycles of temperature modifications. The company mentioned it plans to carefully monitor the lander’s deterioration.
Scientists are hoping to seek out clues about the origin of the moon by the evaluating mineral compositions of moon rocks and people of Earth.
The message from SLIM got here days after NASA restored contact with Voyager 1, the farthest space probe from earth, which had been sending garbled information again to earth for months.
An U.S. lunar probe developed by a personal space firm introduced termination of its operation a month after its February touchdown, whereas an Indian moon lander failed to ascertain communication after landing in 2023.
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Japan’s moon lander wasn’t constructed to outlive a weekslong lunar night time. It is nonetheless going after 3 (2024, April 24)
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