Days after the successful launch of India’s second moon mission, Chandrayaan-2 has mapped the Moon’s northern areas and has captured photos of the Jackson Crater, Mitra Crater, Sommerfeld Crater and Rozhdestvenskiy Crater, among others on August 23. The photos were shot from an altitude of around 4,375 kilometres above lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-2 will be performing a series of maneuvers to bring itself closer and closer to the Moon. On September 2, the lander Vikram will separate from the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft and get into an orbit of its own around the Moon and on September 6, Vikram will begin a 15-minute powered descent, and will land near the south pole of the Moon and set free the six-wheeled rover Pragyaan that will roam the lunar surface for around 14 Earth days.
ISRO has released the pictures on their official twitter page which reads Lunar surface imaged by Terrain Mapping Camera-2(TMC-2) of #Chandrayaan2 on August 23 at an altitude of about 4375 km showing craters such as Jackson, Mach, Korolev and Mitra (In the name of Prof. Sisir Kumar Mitra).
Chandrayaan-2 has captured images of the Jackson and Mitra craters, located in the northern hemisphere of the far side of the Moon. The Mitra crater is named after Indian physicist Professor Sisir Kumar Mitra. The other impact craters that Chandrayaan-2 has photographed are the Sommerfeld, named after the German physicist, Dr. Arnold Sommerfeld, and Kirkwood, named after American astronomer Daniel Kirkwood. Both these craters are located in the farside northern latitudes of the Moon.
Chandrayaan-2 has also photographed the lunar north polar region, which ISRO says is one of the coldest spots in the Solar System.
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