Chandrayaan-3 rover has landed in a crater on the Moon that is 3.85 billion years old.
Chandrayaan-3, India's lunar mission, successfully landed in a 3.85-billion-year-old crater on the Moon, revealing unique geological features and providing insights into lunar evolution.
Chandrayaan-3, India's lunar mission, has successfully landed in a crater on the Moon that is approximately 3.85 billion years old, as reported by scientists on Saturday. This crater is among the oldest on the lunar surface. Researchers from the Physical Research Laboratory and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Ahmedabad confirmed that the landing site dates back to the Nectarian period, around 3.85 billion years ago. S. Vijayan, an associate professor in the Planetary Sciences Division at the Physical Research Laboratory, noted that the mission's Pragyan rover has reached a location on the Moon previously unexplored by other missions.
"The Chandrayaan-3 landing site presents a unique geological setting that no other missions have examined. The images captured by the Pragyan rover are the first from this latitude, providing insights into the Moon's evolution," he told PTI.
Craters are formed when asteroids collide with larger celestial bodies, resulting in displaced material known as ejecta. The images from the mission indicated that half of the crater was buried under ejecta from the South Pole-Aitken basin, the largest known impact basin on the Moon. While an impact basin has a diameter greater than 300 km, the crater where Chandrayaan-3 landed measures about 160 km across, appearing as a nearly semi-circular structure.
Researchers noted that this suggests one side of the crater is "degraded" due to being covered by ejecta. Additionally, they observed ejecta from another impact crater located farther away, indicating that similar material is present at the landing site, as shown in the images from the Pragyan rover. "Together, the images from the mission and satellites reveal that the Chandrayaan-3 landing site consists of material deposited from various regions of the Moon," Vijayan explained.
Chandrayaan-3 achieved a soft landing on the Moon's south pole on August 23, 2023, making it the only mission to successfully land on this side of the Moon. The government has designated the landing site as Shiv Shakti Point.
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