About to sink into the cold night -173 degrees

India's Pragyan lunar rover has taken the first ever image of its 'mother ship' - the Vikram lander, as the two continue their groundbreaking expedition during the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released two black-and-white images of Vikram on Wednesday, August 30, showing the Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander standing on the dusty lunar surface.

"Smile! This morning Pragyan Rover captured an image of Vikram Lander," ISRO said in a post sharing the images on X (formerly Twitter). "'This historic image was captured by the Rover's onboard Navigation Camera (NavCam)."

The first image of Chandrayaan 3 mission's Vikram lunar lander on the lunar surface captured by the mission's Pragyan rover. Credit: ISRO

ISRO said the image was captured on Wednesday (August 30) at 7:35 a.m. Indian Standard Time. One of the annotated images shows Vikram's two science sensors deployed on the lunar surface - the Chandra Surface Thermophysics Experiment (ChaSTE) and the Interplanetary Seismic Activity Instrument (ILSA).

Chandrayaan-3 mission reaches halfway mark

The Chandrayaan-3 mission landed on the Moon on Wednesday, August 23. One Earth day later, the Pragyan rover moved down from the lander and the two began their historic scientific journey.

A week (in Earth time) since landing, the mission has sent home a series of images and videos of Pragyan walking on the lunar surface, leaving traces on the lunar soil.

That is why the image released by ISRO on August 30 is the first image showing the Vikram lander through the "eyes" of the Pragyan rover.

The mission's ChaSTE sensor made headlines earlier this week when it took temperature measurements on the lunar surface - the first measurements ever taken near the south pole using a sensor placed directly on the surface rather than from lunar orbit. The instrument has a probe that drills 10 centimeters into the soft lunar soil to understand how soil temperature changes with depth.

ISRO's analytical image of the Vikram rover with its scientific sensors. Source: ISRO

Measurements show extremely different temperature gradients at the surface: Just 8cm below the surface, the soil has a freezing temperature of minus 10 degrees Celsius, while the lunar surface is a scorching 60 degrees Celsius due to the sun.

According to scientists, the Moon's surface can become extremely hot during the two full moons because the object, unlike Earth, is not protected by a thick atmosphere capable of absorbing the Sun's heat.

Previous measurements from spacecraft orbiting the Moon show that, especially around the Moon's equator, temperatures can reach a terrifying 127 degrees Celsius (260 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day and plummet to minus 173 degrees Celsius (minus 270 degrees Fahrenheit) at night, according to NASA.

For this reason, crewed missions to the Moon must take place at lunar dawn when the Moon has warmed up enough for humans to work before it becomes too hot.

In a separate announcement, ISRO said the Chandrayaan-3 mission had found traces of sulfur in lunar soil. Sulfur had previously been found in small amounts in samples brought to Earth by Apollo missions in the 1970s, but scientists were uncertain about how common the mineral was on the moon.

Scientists believe that the sulfur on the Moon comes from past tectonic activity, and so learning more about its abundance could help them better understand the Moon's past.

The Vikram and Pragyan spacecraft will conduct experiments for a total of 14 Earth days (1 lunar day). Chandrayaan-3 is now halfway through its planned journey as neither the probe nor the lander could survive the cold, sunless lunar night.

The batteries of both solar-powered craft were not powerful enough to keep the system running as temperatures plummeted and darkness enveloped the lunar surface.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission was India's first successful attempt to land on the Moon and the world's first successful landing on the south polar region. Previously, only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China had placed their spacecraft on the lunar surface in a controlled landing.

In early 2023, a Japanese lander called Hakuto-R crashed when it hit the rim of an impact crater during its landing, and Russia’s Luna-25 mission met a similar fate just three days before Chandrayaan-3’s success.

India itself previously attempted a landing on the Moon with the Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019; although the Chandrayaan-2 lander crashed due to a software glitch, its orbiter still studied the Moon from above.

The south polar region that Chandrayaan-3 studied is of great scientific interest because its impact craters are believed to contain significant amounts of water ice.

Scientists believe this water could be extracted and used to provide drinking water and oxygen for future crews, reducing the cost of such missions.

Source: Space

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