As of 7th January 2021 Thursday, The CNSA –China National Space Administration Belt and Road Initiative Lunar Mission……Chang’e-4 successfully awakened and entered the 26th day of the work period….Waking up Chang’e 4 awakened smoothly and entered the 26th day of work….. With a new round of dawn on the back of the moon, Chang’e 4 ushered in the 26th day of the month, and the “Yutu 2” lunar rover at 10 o’clock on January 7 waking up at 29 minutes, the lander woken up at 03:13 on January 8. As of today, Chang’e-4 has been in operation for 736 Earth days, continuing to refresh the record of human probes working on the back of the moon.
During the day of this month, the lunar rover will continue to travel towards the basalt distribution area or the impact crater area with high reflectivity (approximately 27m from the current detection point, and there is a degenerated impact crater with a diameter of approximately 160m in the south of the crater), both of which are located in the northwest direction of the current detection point.
With a new round of dawn on the back of the moon, Chang’e 4 ushered in the 26th day of the month. The “Yutu 2” lunar rover awakened at 10:29 on January 7 and the lander at 03:13 on January 8 wake. As of today, Chang’e-4 has been in operation for 736 Earth days, continuing to refresh the record of human probes working on the back of the moon.
During the day of this month, the lunar rover will continue to travel towards the basalt distribution area or the impact crater area with high reflectivity (approximately 27m from the current detection point, and there is a degenerated impact crater with a diameter of approximately 160m in the south of the crater), both of which are located in the northwest direction of the current detection point.
The following exploration activities are planned during the day of this month:
(1) It is preferable to take a panoramic camera ring shot near noon of the moon.
(2) Detection and calibration of infrared imaging spectrometer.
(3) The neutral atom detector is turned on for detection.
(4) Synchronous detection of lunar radar during driving. The scientific research team will continue to conduct scientific analysis on the acquired detection data, and relevant results will be released in time.
Previously……. As of 22 December 2020, The CNSA –China National Space Administration Belt and Road Initiative Lunar Mission The “Yutu-2” lunar rover has a mileage exceeding 600 meters, completing the 25th day of work….The Chang’e 4 lander and the “Yutu 2” lunar rover completed the 25th day of the month at 5 o’clock on December 22 and 19:22 on the 21st, respectively. The moon night mode setting was completed according to ground instructions and entered moon night sleep. As of today, the Chang’e-4 lander and the “Yutu-2” lunar rover have been working on the moon for 719 days, and the lunar rover has travelled 600.55 meters in total……
Researchers conduct research and analysis on the detection data obtained in 25 months, and continue to produce scientific results. A recent scientific achievement published in the internationally authoritative academic journal Astrophysical Journal Letters (Xu et al 2020) shows that the lunar neutron and radiation dosimeter mounted on the Chang’e-4 lander detected a solar high-energy particle event on the back of the moon (SEP). This is the first time that a human probe has detected SEP on the surface of the moon, verifying the performance of the instrument, and also made a detailed analysis of the acceleration mechanism and the acceleration source area of the SEP.
Previous observations made by Chang’e-4 indicate that the radiation intensity on the surface of the moon is about 100 times that of the earth (Zhang et al. 2020, Space. Adv.). Since the moon does not have the same atmosphere and magnetic field as the earth, the Galactic cosmic ray (GCR) can easily reach the surface of the moon. Such high-intensity background radiation can cause damage to astronauts working on the surface of the moon. In addition, when solar activity erupts, the solar high-energy particle event will cause the particle flux to increase by thousands of times, and the space radiation will also be greatly enhanced. Therefore, the observation of the arrival of high-energy particles of the sun on the moon is particularly important.
In 2019, the sun is in a very small year, no sunspots have appeared for a long time, and the chance of observing solar high-energy particle events is even smaller. Chang’e-4 captured such an event. The study found that both electrons and protons exhibit good velocity dispersion. By linearly fitting the data points, it is possible to deduce the release time of particles from the acceleration zone and the distance the particles travel in interplanetary space before reaching the moon.
In addition, the proton energy spectrum of this SEP event was further analysed, including the GCR background energy spectrum and the background subtracted energy spectrum. According to the energy spectrum with the background subtracted, the dashed power law spectrum is used to fit it, and it is found that the energy inflection point is about 2.5MeV….
Images and visuals are from Weibo CNSA –China National Space Administration –CLEP- China Luna Exploration Program..
