The dark side of the moon has never been seen by humans until the 3rd of January, the side that does not face elsewhere but away from the Earth.
Until that date, it was all a mystery to us. However, China made sure that it would not remain this way so a lunar lander, Chang’e-4, was successfully landed by the National Space Administration at South Pole-Aitken the deepest and largest basin of the moon. Yutu-2, its lunar rover, sends home dozens of pictures of rocks, the soils, and craters so scientists can analyze them. It also tried to grow plants, but the germinated seed died after freezing.
The existence of water on the moon has also been speculated for long by scientists, and it was confirmed a decade ago by India’s Chandrayaan-1 satellite. That also happened in August 2018 when NASA found water ice on the surface.
In 2014 India’s Mangalyaan satellite went even further and visited Mars from where it sent back stunning images. A human-crewed mission to space was also promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by 2022, and Team Indus, one Indian startup, has already built a lunar rover which can be a great help to that.
Multi-nation space race
The Soviets and the Americans may be the starters of a space race which’s prize is the global domination, but Japan, China, India, and others enjoy it. The entrepreneurs are the most interesting entrants including Jeff Bezos of Amazon AMZN, +0.18% and Blue Origin, Elon Musk of Tesla TSLA, -12.97% and SpaceX, Team Indus’ Rahul Narayan, and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic. These people want to make an impact on humanity and what drives them to succeed is their curiosity and ego.
We can be sure that as many such people will get involved, we will get to know the space better.
Agnes is a technical writer, being in touch with reports to come up with the latest tech leaks.
