ISRO Releases New Images Captured By Vikram And Rover (images-twitter/ISROSpaceflight)
India is all set to celebrate its first-ever National Space Day on August 23, 2024, commemorating the historic soft landing of Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram Lander on the Moon’s surface.
Ahead of the celebration, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has released thousands of images captured by the Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover during their lunar exploration. One among the images shared provides the best visual of Pragyan’s attempt to imprint India’s national emblem on the lunar regolith.
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“As we know, this wasn’t very successful as the texture of lunar soil near the South Pole, (where the landing was successfully made) was found to be different than expected,” ISRO Spaceflight said, adding that the “NavCam on Pragyan is a B/W (black-and-white) camera. The cameras on Vikram are colour cameras,” they wrote on X.
[3/3] This image captured by the RI cam provides perhaps the best visual of Pragyan’s attempts to imprint India’s national emblem on the Lunar regolith.
As we know, this wasn’t very successful as the texture of Lunar soil near South Pole was found to be different than expected. pic.twitter.com/hBZhR6G8y7
— ISRO Spaceflight (@ISROSpaceflight) August 22, 2024
The newly released images showcase various stages of the mission, including the Pragyan rover’s first moments on the lunar surface.
The video compiled from the images was revealed on social media platform X by a user, @Astro__Neel. Apart from the rover images, ISRO has also unveiled striking visuals from the Lander imager camera abroad Vikram.
The released images also included Vikram’s terminal descent and landing sequence. These visuals provide a gripping account of the final moments before India achieved its groundbreaking soft landing near the lunar south pole on August 23, 2023.
This mission has marked a significant milestone for India’s space program, making it the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and the first to do so near the lunar south pole.
Chandrayaan-3’s success has not only boosted India’s standing in the global space and community but has also provided valuable scientific data about the Moon’s composition and environment.
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Moreover, ahead of the celebration, a new discovery from data sent by the Pragyan rover has added a feather to the mission’s cap.
A team of Indian scientists led by Santosh Vadawale from the Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) has revealed that the regolith – the outermost layer of lunar soil- around the landing site had a uniform elemental composition which is primarily composed of ferroan anorthosite rock.
The PRL team has also uncovered evidence of a former magma ocean near the lunar south pole. This discovery has revealed that the lunar soil is a mixture of two types of rocks where part of the material is excavated from deeper layers of the Moon, providing direct insight into the evolutionary history of the Moon.
