China Shows Off Pictures Of The Moon In Full Color

The space fever has reached the Far East. Or rather, the increased interest in space exploration and science may have helped push China to finally share to the rest of the world one of its biggest, though perhaps lesser known, achievements in this field of science. In 2013, it launched the Chang'e 3 lander and become the third country to ever make a soft-landing on the Moon. And although its accompanying Yutu rover is no longer functional, it was able to snap these clear, hi-res, true color photos of the moon.

China set out to prove that, it too, like powerful nations like the US and Russia, can successfully soft land on the moon, the China National Space Administration launched Chang'e in 2015, following up two other spacecrafts of the same name which, in contrast, were orbiters. Aside from the soft landing, Chang'e 3's mission was to bring the Yutu rover to the moon safe and sound.

While it did indeed successfully do that, Yutu's story didn't exactly have a happy ending. The rover was equipped with your standard scientific and sensor hardware, like radar, x-ray, visible and near-infrared spectometers, and, of course, cameras. Just a year after it landed, however, Yutu started to have problems moving because the rover was ill-prepared for the moon's frigid night temperatures. By 2015, it was declared non-operational.

Before it died, however, it was still able to collect data, record images and videos, and send those back to Earth. Which was a good thing, because the album of colored photos of the moon it acquired is simply astounding.

Of course, China's space dreams don't end there, but unlike other country's or even private companies who are betting on Mars, China still has its eyes set on the moon. By 2018, it will attempt to make history by being the first to land on the far, dark side of the moon.

VIA: TechCrunch