Days after entering the lunar orbit, Chandrayaan-2 on Thursday, 22 August, released its first photo of the moon captured by the Vikram Lander. The photo, which was published on ISRO’s Twitter handle, has been taken at a height of about 2,650 km from the lunar surface on Wednesday.
In the photo, ISRO identifies two geographical landmarks of the moon – Mare Orientale basin and Apollo craters – which are identified in the photograph.
The Mare Orientale, shaped like a target ring bull's-eye, is one of the most striking large scale lunar features, located on the Moon's extreme western edge, and is difficult to see from an earthbound perspective, according to US space agency NASA.
It is said to be over 3 billion years old, about 950 km across and was formed by the impact of an asteroid-sized object.
Apollo is a large 538 km diameter double-ringed impact crater in the southern hemisphere of the far side, according to NASA.
Moon Landing on 7 September
The space agency had on 4 August released the first set of images of the earth captured by Chandrayaan-2 satellite.
After Chandrayaan-2 was placed in lunar orbit, ISRO Chairman K Sivan said that the next major event will happen on 2 September when the lander will be separated from the orbiter. On 3 September, there will be a small maneuver for about 3 seconds to ensure that the systems of the lander are running normally.
The mission will land on the moon on 7 September, at around 1:55 am.
Chandrayaan-2, India's second lunar expedition, will shed light on a completely unexplored region of the moon – its south pole.
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