MADRID, June 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
NASA has released an image of China’s Chang’e 6 sample return spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, taken on June 7 by the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter).
The Chang’e 6 probe landed on June 1, and when the LRO probe passed over the landing site almost a week later, it obtained an image showing the probe on the edge of an eroded crater about 50 meters in diameter.
The LRO camera team calculated the coordinates of the landing site as about 42 degrees south latitude, 206 degrees east longitude, at an altitude of about minus 5,256 meters, NASA reports.
The Chang’e 6 landing site is located toward the southern edge of the Apollo Basin (about 492 km in diameter, centered at 36.1 degrees south latitude, 208.3 degrees east longitude).
About 3.1 billion years ago, south of Chaffee S crater, an eruption of basaltic lava occurred that flowed downhill to the west until it encountered a local topographic high point, probably related to a fault. Several wrinkled ridges in this region have deformed and elevated the surface of the mare or lunar plain.
The landing site is located approximately halfway between two of these prominent ridges. This basaltic flow also overlaps a slightly older flow (about 3.3 billion years old), visible further west, but the more recent flow is distinguished because has higher abundances of iron oxide and titanium dioxide.
