2024-02-15 06:51:27
Japan’s unmanned lunar spacecraft has transmitted data from an analysis of 10 lunar rocks that may help provide clues about the origins of Earth’s natural satellite. This was announced on Wednesday by an employee of the Japanese Space Agency JAXA, quoted by AP.
For four days, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, which landed on the moon last month, used its multi-band spectral camera to study the composition of lunar rocks, said the project manager of JAXA Shinichiro Sakai.
The lunar mission is Japan’s first. The spacecraft made a historic precision landing on January 20, although it touched down the wrong way. Initially, its solar panels failed to orient properly and were shut down after a brief communication with Earth. But on the eighth day, they began to work, which allowed him to successfully restore communication with the JAXA command center on Earth, BTA reported.
A black-and-white photo transmitted shortly after SLIM was reactivated showed the uneven lunar surface, including six rocks. In the end, the device received data from a total of 10 rocks, all of which were named after dog breeds, such as Akita Inu, Beagle and Shiba Inu.
“We hope that the analysis of the rocks will lead us to the origin of the moon,” says Sakai. By comparing the mineral composition of lunar rocks with that of Earth, scientists could understand whether the rocks have common elements, he said. According to the hypothesis of ” giant impact’, the Moon is believed to have formed as a result of the Earth colliding with another planet and a smaller mass breaking off from them.
The JAXA team had expected SLIM to examine and analyze only one rock, so the availability of data on 10 rocks is cause for celebration, prompting the team to continue studying the Moon’s origins.
SLIM is currently “sleeping” in another lunar night that will last until the end of February. It is not yet known whether the probe and its spectroscope will survive the super-cold night temperatures and be able to “wake up” when the sunlight shines again .
The spacecraft landed about 55 meters from its target, near the Shioli Crater, an area covered in volcanic rock. This is the most precise landing compared to previous lunar missions, which typically targeted flat areas at least 10 km wide.
Had the lander not suffered a last-minute failure in one of its two main engines that resulted in a harder-than-planned landing, SLIM’s landing was expected to be just a few meters from the target, JAXA explained.
With this landing, Japan became the fifth country in the world to reach the moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.