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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 9h

Queqiao carried one science instrument: the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE), a radio astronomy instrument. This is not my field and I may be missing something, but I can't find anything much about any results from the instrument. Chang'e 4 had its own radio astronomy experiment […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 9h

A very quick look at Queqiao. The image is one of many from a little monitoring camera. The satellite was designed to relay data to and from Chang'e 4 on the far side, and it worked well for several years. Then it seemed to be low on fuel for orbit […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

An image of the Moon and Earth from a small monitoring camera on Quequiao. The Moon looks bigger because it's closer.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/10/2026

This post replying to mine: mastodon.social/@tammojan@social.ed… gives you a link to the Longjiang 2 images. Please use them if you are so inclined. Longjiang 2 was supposed to do radio astronomy with its companion satellite Longjiang 1 but that was lost. But even […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/10/2026

@tammojan @radiotelescoop Thanks for your message. I had a link to a page at Harbin with many images on it bit it seems to have evaporated. This is very useful.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

Public Service Announcement. I am blocking annoying posts which seem to be ai-generated, just long lists of tags. Sorry if I make a mistake and inadvertently block some worthy poster, but sometimes one has to draw a line.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

One of the gifts of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is its multiple image coverage. We don't just have one image of pretty much everywhere on the entire Moon, we have several views with different lighting almost everywhere. Before-after comparisons make changes clear even if very subtle […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

I accidentally outed the end of the Longjiang 2 story - yes, it crashed as its orbit evolved under the influence of lunar mascons. The impact was predicted and the prediction was good enough for LRO to locate the impact site. These illustrations show the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Three images show the location of the Longjiang 2 impact deep on the far side of the Moon. At top is a wide area context map with numerous named craters. A small ellipse shows the predicted impact region. At lower left the impact area is enlarged. it's in a crater called Van Gent X. There was a small possibility of it hitting the rim of the crater but it cleared that and hit a ridge on the northern wall of the crater. At lower right the very small impact crater and some dark ejecta can be seen, highlighted by small white arrows.

Four maps zoom in on the Longjiang 2 impact site to help find it in the original images.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

Longjiang 2 took lots of images including close-ups. I became involved in an effort to locate them - see this blog post by Daniel Estevez who did a lot to study this mission and eventually predicted its impact location (oops - spoiler!) […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

Here are two images from the Saudi camera on Longjiang 2: www.planetary.org/space-images/eart… www.planetary.org/space-images/eart… And here are two from Longjiang 2's own camera. Some were commanded by amateur radar enthusiasts, but I don't […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Harbin students built a payload for the small satellites to let amateur radio enthusiasts command a small camera to take pictures of the Moon. The A2 satellite also had a Saudi Arabian camera which returned some images. A1 was lost after launch but A2 worked as intended. The small satellites […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Queqiao was accompanied by two small satellites, DSLWP-A1 and DSLWP-A2 (Discovering the Sky at Longest Wavelengths Pathfinder). They would observe the sky in the very low frequency part of the radio spectrum to detect distant energetic phenomena. They were built by the Harbin Institute of […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

The Chang'e 5 T-1 service module spent some time at the Earth-Moon L2 point to test operations for the relay satellite needed for Chang'e 4. That relay satellite, Queqiao, was launched in May 2018 to be ready for Chang'e 4 at the end of the year, so it is our next mission. Queqiao takes its name […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

The impact of the Chang'e 5 T-1 upper stage was predicted, with Bill Gray of Project Pluto first bringing it to our attention: www.projectpluto.com/temp/dscovr.htm (the 'dscovr' in the name is because it was misidentified at first). My map shows […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

5 maps show predictions for the location of the Chang'e 5 T-1 upper stage impact on the Moon. At top a context map shows three predictions, all in a line (the trajectory is well known but the location of the object along that trajectory is less well established). Below it, two maps zoom in to the area of the impact. At bottom left is an incorect prediction. The actual impact crater (actually a double crater) is show at bottom right.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

If this sounds familiar, well, we had another very similar story only 2 months ago (early August 2026). That was the Falcon 9 upper stage from the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander in 2025. Concern is growing about these rocket impacts (despite them being far less of a […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

... but it missed atmospheric re-entry and looped back out to the Moon again. it spent over 7 years in a long lopping orbit, occasionally being deflected by lunar gravity. Stories like this cannot end well. Sure enough, in March 2022 it hit the Moon. Its […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Four maps zoom in to the impact site of the Chang'e 5 T-1 launch vehicle upper stage. The final map shows the impact site as a double crater.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

If you want to go to the Moon you need a rocket to push your spacecraft away from Earth, and that rocket - the upper stage of the launch vehicle - will end up somewhere near the Moon as well. Some of them fly out into solar orbit, some will loop around the Moon and come back to Earth, maybe to […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

To demonstrate what I just said about the resolution of the Chang'e 5 T-1 image, here is an LRO narrow-angle camera image (from Quickmap) showing the largest crater in panel D in the previous post. China, of course, used LRO data for its site selection, as […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

This image shows the largest crater in the Chang'e 5 T-1 image shown in the previous post, but as seen in LRO images via Quickmap, to illustrate the difference in resolution. LRO narrow angle camera images are greatly superior, at least 10 times the resolution.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

Here are the only two images released from the Change 5 T-1 survey of the Chang'e 5 landing area. They are wide (C) and narrow (D) angle views (low and high resolution). The Chang'e 5 landing area was quite wide east--west and these images are in its western […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Two images from Chang'e 5 T-1 (top) and a map of the area they cover (bottom). The 2 images are wide angle (top left) and narrow angle (top right). This area is west of the actual landing site of Chang'e 5.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

So Chang'e 5 T-1 had a camera... this was not really a science camera but it could still be put to use. The next step was to move the service module to lunar orbit, where it could image the landing region for Chang'e 5, the future sample return mission. I have only ever seen two images from this […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Here are a couple of images that Chang'e 5 T-1's service module took. We see the lunar farside with Mare Moscoviense near the middle and Earth in the top left corner. The inset is a closeup of Mare Marginis on the limb as seen from Earth. The Service module […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Pictures from China's Chang'e 5 T-1 mission, a test of a sample return system. The main picture shows the far side of the Moon (right) with the distant Earth at upper left. A inset at lower left shows a closer image of Mare Marginis.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

What comes after Chang'e 3? In this case it's not Chang'e 4. China was planning a sample return mission for Chang'e 5 but it needed experience with re-entry from deep space, so it flew a test mission called Chang'e 5 T-1 in October 2014. The spacecraft flew around the Moon and back to Earth. The […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

This process I just described was time-consuming. A 360 degree stereo panorama was taken at each stop, transmitted to Earth, used to make a topo map and then analyzed to find the best path forward. That drive was commanded, and then the next set of pictures could be taken. Lunokhod 2 once drove […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

... The two paths go southwest to a small young crater or northeast to a larger old crater. That was preferred because it is near a boundary between two lava flows and might have excavated material from the lower layer. That was 5 km away and reaching it would have taken a long time. Yutu was […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

Yutu stopped working as it was approaching the Chang'e 3 lander. A Chinese map made it clear the next stop was to be the crater just north of the lander. But where after that? Several papers described options. One showed Yutu driving northwest to stop on a […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Three small maps showing possible future paths for Chang'e 3's rover Yutu. At top left is a path to the northwest, about 300 m, to stop on a small hill with a good view into a nearby crater. At top right a map shows 3 feasible routes into the 3 craters around the landing site, if they were chosen as destinations. The third map, at bottom, shows a path to a small crater southwest of the lander and a path to the northeast to reach 'northeast crater'. That crater's ejecta might have exposed some deeper rock layers, especially an older lava flow buried at the landing site.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

The rover tracks are visible in that previous image and can be compared with the earlier map. Here is another view of those tracks, taken by LRO. This was taken after the rover stopped moving. The big rock, the rover and the lander are all in a line. The […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

An image from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showing Chang'e 3 on the Moon, taken after the rover stopped moving. The large rock, the rover and the lander are in a line. A bright area around the lander is caused by rocket plume effects on the regolith during landing. The rover tracks are visible as a dark line.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

This curious image started as a panorama from the rover when it was near the big rock "Outer Fence". it has been projected into a circle, a polar projection, but with the radial scale modified (shrinking it in the middle) so it resembles a stereographic […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A panorama taken by Yutu when it was near the big rock called 'Outer Fence'. It has been projected into a circle. The rover is in the middle and the lander is at upper right, rather distorted. The image shows the rover's tracks.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

We should take a look at the actors in our story - Here are the rover Yutu (just after descending from the lander) and the Chang'e 3 lander (imaged by Yutu near the end of its drive, looking northeast). There is a wider view of the lander taken from near that […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Yutu imaged by the Chang'e 3 lander just after descending to the lunar surface.

The Chang'e 3 lander imaged by Yutu near the end of its drive.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

... camera mast and an instrument (APXS) deployment arm were frozen. The rover communicated for a while and the lander is still alive but not doing much. The map contains several designations for each stop on the traverse and for craters in addition to the astronomical names. The literature is a […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

This map shows the route of Chang'e 3's little rover Yutu (Jade Rabbit). It worked through the first day, survived the night, and then operated for the first half of the second lunar day before suddenly failing on 15 January. The map shows dates for the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A map of the route of Chang'e 3's rover Yutu. The rover drove off the lander on its north side, looped around the lander on its east side, and imaged the lander from several positions. Then it drove south, stopping for the lunar night about 30 m south of the lander. On day 2 it moved west to the big rock variously called Outer Fence, Loong Rock, Pyramid Rock or Long Yan, then moved towards the lander, planning to pass it on its west side. Before it got to the lander it suddenly stopped working. It could communicate and use its radar but could not drive, turn its camera or deploy its small arm carrying one of its instruments. It survived for several months like that.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

The base image for that map is from the lander's descent images. Here is a table showing the names as seen in two different sources - obviously there are translation differences here. #china #moon

A table giving those Chinese names with notes about which western constellation the smaller Chinese features correspond to.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

This map shows the full set of names given to the small craters and rocks around the Chang'e 3 landing site (note it excludes the names of larger features around the site, shown in an earlier post). It also shows the descent path of the lander and the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A map of the Chang'e 3 landing site showing names of craters and rocks. The lander and rover are shown as well as the descent path of the lander.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

Here the first Chang'e 3 panorama has been projected into a circle to show the horizon, north at the top. The method exaggerates the horizon relief, making subtle crater rims and hills easier to see. The names come from traditional Chinese astronomy. China […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A circular image in which the Chang'e 3 lander panorama has been projected into a circle. North is at the top, the lander is in the middle and the rover is seen with its tracks northeast of the rover. The nearby craters show up in their correct directions from the lander. Several features are named.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

More views from the Chang'e 3 lander and rover. At top is a view of the rocks around Celestial Spring crater. This would have been the next stop for the rover if it had not failed during the second lunar day. Below it is a rover image of the Outer Fence rock […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Three images from Chang'e 3. The top view is looking north from the lander and shows a rocky-rimmed crater called Celestial Spring. Names will be explained later. The two lower images are from the rover, Yutu. One shows the large rock seen earlier from a different direction. The other shows the rock-strewn walls of Zi Wei crater. just west of the landing site.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

I said the lander's camera was not designed to survive the night but the rest of the lander was. It is still operating now (or at least within the last few months), probably only sporadically and I don't think it is doing anything except making radio contact. For several years it operated a UV […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

Here is an annotated version of the panorama with just one view of the rover. The names of features will be shown in another map later. The big rock seen at each end of the panorama had several names at different times but 'Outer Fence' is the semi-official […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A full panorama of the Chang'e 3 landing site with a few feature names added, as well as direction indicators along the top. Parts of the lander take up most of the foreground. Beyond it, numerous craters and scattered rocks are visible.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

Woo-hoo (so to speak) - we have landed on the Moon (on 14 December 2013) for the first time since Luna 24 in 1976. Let's take a look around the Chang'e 3 landing site! Here is a nice version of the panorama - its authors are named below it - which combines all 5 views we had of the rover from […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

Ignore the Figure numbers on these maps - they are placeholders for the actual numbers which will be higher, in the 500s. I didn't know what the numbers would be when I made these illustrations. Chang'e 3 will appear in part 10 of my Moon Chronicle. I am just completing editing of part 9 and I […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

These 4 maps zoom in to the Chang'e 3 landing site to help find it in images. Distant features seen in surface images are tentatively identified in the first map. Names of the site itself and some craters are also shown. With this first landing by China, the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Four maps make up this composite image, zooming in from an initial context map about 30 km across (top left) to an extreme closeup (bottom right). The context image shows some distant features tentatively identified in surface images. The third image (bottom left) gives the names of the site itself and 3 craters which are taken from traditional Chinese astronomy. The last image shows the lander and its rover on the surface, and the landing target point which is about 75 m northeast of the lander.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

Chang'e 3 landed close to the boundary between dark and light (young and old) flows. As we will see there was some hope that it could analyze both types of basalt, but this was not done. #china #moon

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

The top map here shows the Sinus Iridum landing area - see how it extends outside the 'bay' - and high resolution coverage by Chang'e 2. The high resolution came from dropping the orbit to only 15 km altitude from the normal 100 km orbit. It was done in 2 […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Two maps of the Chang'e 3 landing site. Both maps cover the semicircular 'bay' called Sinus Iridum - a large crater mostly with lava which covers half of its rim. The top one shows the official Chang'e 3 landing area, a rectangle crossing Sinus Iridum and extending east of it into Mare Imbrium. Most of it is covered by Chang'e 2 high resolution images which are shown with white outlines. The lower map shows some geological features including ridges (white lines) and a young lava flow (dark on the map).

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

This is quite typical of Chinese missions. There is a rather opaque process to pick a site, but also various researchers will offer suggestions: site selection makes a good research project. We will see a lot more of this later. The actual site is shown in the top map and it's outside Sinus […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Sinus Iridum was chosen quite early for the Chang'e 3 site so Chang'e 2 could image it. It is at 45 north where mid-day temperatures are less fierce than at the equator - all Chinese landers have gone to mid-latitude sites. Here is another suggestion about […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Five panels show two sites suggested for Chang'e3 in a 2014 study by Le Qiao. The top map shows Sinus Iridum and parts of Mare Imbrium east of it. The actual Chang'e 3 site is at the far right of the map. Two boxes locate the new suggestions. Below that map are two mid-resolution views to locate the sites, and two high resolution images identifying the exact locations.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

Two studies at about the same time as the previous map showed specific ideas about sites. The first one shown here is Aristarchus. Its floor is rough but one small area might be smooth enough for a landing. For a first landing attempt, this would be very […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Two maps showing ideas from around 2010 for Chang'e 3 landing sites. At left is Aristarchus, one of the craters shown on yesterday's map. A small smooth part of the crater floor was suggested as a landing site, but it would be very challenging - small and surrounded by high crater walls. At right is Sinus Iridum, the preferred site for the mission. This version of the mission shows a north-south oriented traverse 180 km long for the ground-penetrating radar instrument. The distance is far greater than the mission's small rover could possibly achieve.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

Sinus Iridum, the Bay of Rainbows, was preferred for Chang'e 3. A landing area extending across Sinus Iridum and outside it was chosen so Chang'e 2 could get high resolution images of it. China also had access to LRO images which had even higher resolution. The area chosen lies near a boundary […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

We now move to Chang'e 3, the first Chinese lander, with its rover Yutu. Yutu (Jade Rabbit) was the companion of Chang'e on the Moon. Launch was in late 2013 but landing sites were discussed as far back as 2009. The first statement in a Xinhua press release […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Sites suggested for China's first Moon lander, Chang'e 3, in 2009 and 2010. Four are young craters and three are basalt plains (maria).

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

Why did Chang'e 2's excellent mapping camera not image the asteroid? I don't know. it may not have been working. It may have been geometry (if solar panels point at the Sun the camera can't see the asteroid). Anyway the spacecraft flew off into orbit around the Sun. In a few decades it will pass […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

Toutatis had been studied using Earth-based radar before, but never seen by spacecraft. Here are links about it: arxiv.org/pdf/1511.02131 (paper about the images) www.nature.com/articles/srep03411 (open source paper about the asteroid) […]

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

After Chang'e 2's mapping work ended, 3 extended missions were considered for it: crash on the Moon, return to Earth (testing navigation?) or orbit the Sun. The last was chosen. First, in June 2011 it set off for the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point. After 8 […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

a Chang'e 2 image of asteroid 4179 Toutatis. The red-brown colour may be exaggerated. The asteroid is 4 km long and very irregular in shape, apparently consisting of two objects stuck together. There are few obvious craters but many rocks scattered over its surface.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

It didn't really change, of course, it was just misinterpreted. E is a strange pit, presumably a kind of collapse feature. C, D and E are all in Mare Serenitatis. These are from the stereo science camera system, but Chang'e 2 also had several monitoring […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Four images from a monitoring camera on Chang'e 2 showing part of the spacecraft against a backdrop of the Moon.

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Phil Stooke @philstooke.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

Let's see a few representative images from Chang'e 2. These were taken from a site I can't link to at the moment. A is one of the first images of the mission showing a region near the Chang'e 3 landing site. B is a fractured floor crater. C is a fracture […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

$Chang'e 2 images released by CNSA and the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP). At top left is a view of an area near the Chang'e 3 landing site. Top middle: a crater with a fractured floor. Top right: a fracture complex in Mare Serenitatis. Bottom left: Linné, a small crater in Mare Serenitatis. Bottom right: an unusual collapse structure in otherwise typical mare basalt.$

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