China continues to make history in space exploration and today shows us a new feat that is marveling the world. The image that opens this post corresponds to the hidden side of the Moon in all splendor, while in the background our planet makes her company in space.

The image is courtesy of the Chinese satellite Longjiang-2, which entered the lunar orbit last June 2018, and which is slowly starting to send information as part of the mission that recently brought China to the moon for the first time in the story on the hidden side of the Moon.

A historical photography

It is not the first photograph we have of the hidden side of the Moon, but it is the first one that comes to us through a satellite that is in orbit solely to observe the Moon. Therefore, it is a feat that continues to position the Chinese in an important way.

As we know, the Chang'e-4 probe stepped on the hidden side of the Moon earlier this year, a feat that was achieved thanks to the Chinese communications satellite Queqiao, which reached the moon during the launch, in the middle of last year. of the Longjiang-2. Queqiao's mission was to help Chang'e-4 land on the moon.

Queqiao is near the Moon in a position that allows it to be in communication with Longjiang-2 and Chang'e-4 to send transmissions to Earth. Due to the above, during the moon landing mission, the Longjiang-2 had to be deactivated to avoid possible interferences that could affect communications, and a few days ago it was activated again.

Longjiang-2 was not alone in the lunar orbit, it was accompanied by the Longjiang-1 satellite, and the mission of both was to observe and explore the Moon. During the past year, China had problems with the Longjiang-1 which ended in a definite loss of communications, so right now the mission relies only on the Longjiang-2, which fortunately continues to operate without problems.

The Longjiang-2 satellite has already shown its capabilities with amazing photos of the Moon, but now, after its reactivation, on February 3 it made several photographs and 'time-lapses'. The first photograph of these sequences was downloaded on February 4 by the Dwingeloo Observatory Radio in the Netherlands, which shows us the hidden side of the Moon in all its splendor with the company of our planet Earth.

As I mentioned, this is the first photo that captures the hidden side of the Moon and the Earth in a single shot, and it could be a foretaste of what is to come now that the Longjiang-2 is taking pictures and videos again.

Xataka.com