Shocking revelation by Chandrayaan 3

Introduction

After successful soft landing on south polar region of the moon, Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover had begun their work of ‘In Situ Scientific Experiments’, which is one of the objective of this mission. ISRO recently tweeted that, two out of three objectives of the missions are completed, and one is underway.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:

Of the 3⃣ mission objectives,

🔸Demonstration of a Safe and Soft Landing on the Lunar Surface is accomplished☑️

🔸Demonstration of Rover roving on the moon is accomplished☑️

🔸Conducting in-situ scientific experiments is underway. All payloads are…

— ISRO (@isro) August 26, 2023

Meanwhile, PM of India Shri. Narendra Modi announced that, 23^rd August, the day on which we achieved successful soft landing on lunar south polar region, will be celebrated as ‘National Space Day’.

Shocking revelation by Chandrayaan 3

One of the payload on Vikram Lander, ChaSTE (Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment), designed to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature has started giving readings to ISRO. It has a temperature probe equipped with penetration mechanism capable of reaching a depth of 10 cm beneath the surface of the moon. It is now measuring temperature profile of the lunar topsoil, to understand the thermal behavior of the moon’s surface.

You can see ChaSTE payload in the image below, mounted on Vikram Lander:

Recently ISRO has published a graph of ‘variation of temperature on lunar surface with respect to increase in depth’ plotted as per observations by ChaSTE payload, and it shows some awful results.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
Here are the first observations from the ChaSTE payload onboard Vikram Lander.

ChaSTE (Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment) measures the temperature profile of the lunar topsoil around the pole, to understand the thermal behaviour of the moon's… pic.twitter.com/VZ1cjWHTnd

— ISRO (@isro) August 27, 2023

There is very large variation if we compare temperature on the surface of the moon to that of beneath. As per readings, temperature on the surface on the moon is about 50 degree Celsius. But only at the depth of 10 cm below the moons surface it drops to -10 degree Celsius. You can imagine this with an example, surface temperature on the moon is equivalent to summer temperature in Rajasthan desert area, whereas as we go deep for only 10 cm, temperature drastically reduced to equivalent winter temperature in Ladakh. No one has expected such remarkable variation in temperature with only short deviation in depth. Detailed observation on these readings are being carried out, ISRO said.

You can get updates on Chandrayaan 3 mission on X ( Earlier known as tweeter) handle of ISRO: ISRO X handle

If you are interested to read more about Chandrayaan 3 mission, what will be next task after landing, and whether Chandrayaan 3 will return to Earth or not, what will happen after 14 days of mission life, you can visit our: Science blog page

Crater on the way of Pragyan rover??

After successful soft landing, ISRO has shared video on X (Formerly known as Tweeter) of Pragyan rover roaming around landing point.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
🔍What's new here?

Pragyan rover roams around Shiv Shakti Point in pursuit of lunar secrets at the South Pole 🌗! pic.twitter.com/1g5gQsgrjM

— ISRO (@isro) August 26, 2023

Just about 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) from its location on Sunday (Aug. 27), the rover spotted a crater that seemed to be about 4 meters (13 feet) wide. “The rover was commanded to retrace the path,” ISRO posted on X, “It’s now safely heading on a new path.”

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:

On August 27, 2023, the Rover came across a 4-meter diameter crater positioned 3 meters ahead of its location.
The Rover was commanded to retrace the path.

It's now safely heading on a new path.#Chandrayaan_3 #Ch3 pic.twitter.com/QfOmqDYvSF

— ISRO (@isro) August 28, 2023

Is there any other active rover on the moon besides Pragyan??

China’s Yutu 2 rover, sent by Change’s 4 mission in 2019 is supposed to be active on moon’s surface right now along with Pragyan. One of the space expert, Mr. Shanmuga Subramaniam in his tweet has shared distance between 2 active rovers on the Moon as about 1,891 km (with variation of ± 5 km). He further added that, this may be first time in the history to have two active rovers at the same time on the moon.

Distance between 2 active rovers (#Chandrayaan3 Rover and Chang'e 4 Rover) on Moon is approx 1891 kms (± 5kms) pic.twitter.com/uzj4ePXYjZ

— Shan (Shanmuga Subramanian) (@Ramanean) August 27, 2023

Currently active moon missions

Currently six lunar orbiters are operational. NASA has its four moon orbiters namely, Artemis P1 and P2 probes, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) & Capstone. ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 and Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) are the remaining two.

Aditya L1 Mission

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced recently that India’s first space-based solar observatory, PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission, is ready to launch. ISRO released images of the Aditya-L1 mission — the space agency’s first attempt to study the Sun. The Satellite is being integrated with PSLV launch vehicle at the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The mission is scheduled to launch on date 02^nd September 2023, at 11:50 Hrs. IST.