This could change shortly, as NASA plans to send s u first lunar rover as part of her Artemis program. Right now, Yutu 2 is in hibernation due to the lunar night, which for two weeks deprives the space mobile of the sunlight necessary for its operation.įor now, China is the only country that has an active rover on our natural satellite. Since its landing on Januuntil now, has explored a total of 1,003.9 meters. Meanwhile, the publication of Our Space details that this Thursday the rover exceeded the kilometer of travel on the lunar surface. Previously it had been theorized that this object would be a piece of the lunar surface that was ejected after the impact of the meteorite that originated the crater next door. The researchers plan to get even closer to determine how this rock ended up there. This name also refers to the famous Chinese myth about one of these rodents that lived on the Moon and prepared various elixirs.Įnlarged sector of the image reveals the rock that was eventually compared to the shape of a rabbit. Therefore, they decided to name it after the rover Yutu ( ‘jade rabbit’, in Spanish). Still, the scientists observed a certain similarity in the rock to a rabbit on its side. The enlarged image reveals that it is a solitary rock whose shape is very different from that of a cube or any other structure mentioned in public speculation. The panoramic photograph shows the object right on the edge of the crater. Photo: CNSA From cubic object to lonely rock Finally, he ‘woke up’ on December 27 and walked in a straight line to the ‘mysterious cabin’ up to 10 meters from it to start capturing images. After 60 meters of travel, night came and the rover was inactive for several days. Yutu 2 passed between a series of impact craters and the rugged lunar relief. During its expedition, it’s discovered what looked like a ‘gel-like’ substance on the bottom of an impact crater, which ended up being rocks. The Yutu-2 began exploring the moon as part of its Chang’e-4 lunar mission back in 2019. However, the scientists devised a route in which the rover will travel faster, explica Our Space in its recent publication. China will send its rover to investigate a ‘mystery house’ on the far side of the moon. Initial calculations determined that the tour would take at least two months. Hunting for a mystery on the Moonįor that reason, the equipment that operates from Earth to the spacecraft, which is part of the lunar exploration mission Chang’e 4, focused on directing it towards the object, located at that time – early December – at 80 meters, next to an impact crater. They mentioned anything from a “palace on the moon” to an “alien base.” As expected, the experts showed their skepticism about these theories and opted to attribute a natural origin. Photo: composition / CNSAĪfter the publication of the photos, Internet users from different latitudes speculated – many in an ironic way – about the object. Object captured by the Yutu-2 rover on the far side of the Moon. The photographs exhibited an unusual shape, but the low resolution due to the distance made it difficult to distinguish their true nature. Yutu 2 took the first images of the object last month as part of a new expedition to the surface of the far side of the Moon. ifOIFr4oQI- Andrew Jones December 3, 2021Īccording to CNET, the object has been dubbed "mystery house" and scientists are likely to drive the rover closer to it in order to get a better look.The China National Space Administration has released the closest images so far of the cubic formation detected on the Moon by rover Yutu 2 in December and dubbed a “mystery house” by its outreach program Our Space. But large boulders (right) are sometimes excavated by impacts, as seen by the Chang'e-3 mission, which launched 8 years ago on Dec 1. So yeah, it's not an obelisk or aliens, but certainly something to check out, and hard to discern much from the image. "it's not an obelisk or aliens, but certainly something to check out," he added in a follow-up tweet. "Image of a cubic shape on the northern horizon - 80m away from the rover in Von Karman crater," he wrote. ('mystery house'), the next 2-3 lunar days will be spent getting closer to check it out. It has been exploring the far side of the Moon since 2019.Īndrew Jones, a journalist for, highlighted the unusual sighting in a series of tweets shared Friday. The Yutu-2 rover is part of the Chinese Change 4 mission to the Moon since 2019. The Yutu-2 rover is part of the Chinese Chang'e 4 mission to the Moon. According to, the rover spotted the object as it made its way across the Von Karman crater on the far side of the Moon. The object was seen in photos released by China's space agency last week. A strange-looking, cube-shaped object, spotted on the surface of the Moon by China's Yutu-2 moon rover, has become the subject of much speculation on social media.
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