Time Lapse Panorama On The Moon Including Yutu Rover

Where has the Yutu rover been on the Moon? Arriving in 2013 mid-December, the Chinese Yutu robotic rover has spent some of the past month and a half exploring Mare Imbrium on Earth’s Moon. Because it uses solar power, the mechanical Jade Rabbit goes into sleep mode to endure the two-week long lunar night. Pictured above is a digitally created time-lapse composite panorama showing the region surrounding the Chang’e 3 lander, capturing the desk-sized rover in three positions. On the far right, Yutu is seen heading south to investigate greener pastures, likely never to return to its lander again.

If we are lucky we might get to see the moons newest recorded impact crater up close.

On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium and exploded in a flash of apparent magnitude 4.The crater could be as wide as 20 meters. This was the brightest impact recorded since NASA’s lunar impact team began monitoring in 2005.

As for the lander, Chang’e 3s mission will attempt to measure  the structure and depth of the lunar soil down to a depth of 30 m (98 ft), and investigate the lunar crust structure down to several hundred meters deep.

Image Credit: CNSA, Chinanews, Kenneth Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo