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China's space agency recognized a rabbit and a carrot in these stones on the moon
Photo: CNSA
Of course it's stone.
The Chinese space agency CNSA has revealed the secret of the object it described as a "mysterious hut" in November.
To do this, the moon rover »Jadehase 2«, from which the photos of the thing that initially appeared perfectly at right angles were taken, first had to move closer - and that has now been achieved. On its blog "Our Space" the CNSA published close-ups on Friday that had been transmitted the day before from the probe that is traveling in the Von Kármán crater on the far side of the moon.
As it turned out, the cube shape was only due to the blurred image from a distance and the incidence of light. Instead, the new photos show a rather unspectacular, rounded stone - not even as large as the triumphal arch, as was initially speculated. The camera of the »Jade Hare« captured the stone from a perspective diagonally from above, which indicates that the stone is smaller than the rover. In the absence of comparative objects and atmosphere, sizes and distances on the moon cannot be estimated from mere visual appearance.
Nobody had seriously expected an artificial building, a hut or even a testimony to extraterrestrial civilization. Nonetheless, the CNSA tries to absorb the disillusionment after the tension it has created itself. In the control center, someone noticed that the stone resembles the shape of a rabbit, according to the blog entry. A smaller stone lying next to it looks like a carrot. "My God ... It's a jade bunny!" The spontaneous reaction is quoted. Just like their rover, the Chinese now also baptized the stone.
The real sensation for the researchers was how fast they could move the rover to the target. They would have set several speed records in a row, with individual steps of up to twelve meters in length. Once the vehicle was able to take four steps in a row, reports "Our Space", and raves about the fearless climbing through craters as well as the tight navigation between sandy surfaces.
Because of the unexpectedly fast pace, a lunar day, which lasts a good fourteen earth days, was enough to cover the distance to the stone jade hare.
On the equally long moonlit night, the rover lacks solar energy to move and the instruments have to be protected from the extreme cold.
In total, »Jadehase 2« has so far covered a little more than 1000 meters on the moon, and this Tuesday it is celebrating its three-year anniversary.
The mission was only planned for three months.
In 2019, the Chinese rover broke the almost fifty-year-old record of the Soviet rover "Lunochod 1", which was on the moon for 322 earth days.
The mission of "Jadehase 2" is the first ever on the far side of the moon.
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