Outlook Web Desk
As India marked its first National Space Day on August 23, ISRO released a series of new images from the Chandrayaan-3 mission, giving a glimpse of India's historic lunar expedition
ISRO shared images taken by navigation camera or NavCam of rover Pragyan which had descended the ramp from the Vikram lander after its soft landing on moon's south pole last year on August 23
The release of these images came as India celebrated National Space Day on August 23, commemorating the first anniversary of Chandrayaan-3's successful landing.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. It consists of Lander [Vikram] and Rover [Pragyan] configuration.
The Pragyan rover was deployed by the Vikram lander, which made a soft landing near the south pole of the Moon on August 23 last year.
The lander was equipped with capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the Rover which carried out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface in mobility.
Latest data from ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission supports the theory that the Moon was once covered in an ocean of magma, or a 'magma ocean', an analysis, published in the journal Nature, has suggested.
The analysis pertained to measurements of the lunar soil, recorded by the Pragyan rover and taken at multiple points along a 100-metre track on the surface.
This Chandrayaan 3 mission marked a significant milestone for India's space programme, making the country only the fourth in the world to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and the first to do so near the lunar south pole.
The lunar south pole region holds particular interest for scientific exploration as studies show large amounts of ice there, which could contain solid-state compounds that would normally melt under warmer conditions elsewhere on the moon.