India's Chandrayaan-3 moon lander shines in radar images from lunar orbit (photos)

By Elizabeth Howell published about 20 hours ago
The mission is sleeping on the surface after a successful two-week sojourn.



The Chandrayaan-3 moon lander from India was spotted on the lunar surface on Sept. 6, 2022 by a fellow mission: Chandrayaan-2, which has been orbiting the moon since 2019. (Image credit: ISRO)


India's new moon lander and rover were just spotted by another lunar probe.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission from India, which landed on the moon Aug. 23, shines in new pictures from a fellow spacecraft in orbit. The lander is visible in radar imagery taken by another Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) moon mission: Chandrayaan-2, which arrived in lunar orbit in 2019.

ISRO released the new imagery on X (formerly called Twitter) on Saturday (Sept. 9), based on data taken three days beforehand. The Chandrayaan-3 lander is not active right now, however; the near side of the moon (where the mission landed) is in darkness right now for two weeks, meaning all the solar-powered hardware is hibernating.

It may be that Chandrayaan-3's lander and its small ridealong rover emerge from their sleep when sunlight appears again, but the duo have met all their major objectives, per ISRO officials. The rover, named Pragyan, successfully deployed from its lander, Vikram, and took pictures of the area around it.



The Chandrayaan-3 moon lander from India was spotted on the lunar surface on Sept. 6, 2022 by a fellow mission: Chandrayaan-2, which has been orbiting the moon since 2019. (Image credit: ISRO)

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