India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission has achieved an incredible milestone: it has become the first mission to measure the temperature of the soil at the lunar south pole.
Last week, the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover successfully landed on the lunar surface, making India the fourth nation on Earth to achieve this feat. What sets this mission apart is that it landed near the south pole, a location that has never been explored before. The Pragyan rover and Vikram lander wasted no time and immediately began conducting experiments, with a goal of remaining operational for 14 Earth days.
On board are instruments designed to examine the composition of the lunar soil, including a thermometer to measure the temperature at various depths up to 10 centimeters below the surface. The Vikram lander has already taken the first measurements.
“The presented graph illustrates the temperature variations of the lunar surface/near-surface at various depths, as recorded during the probe’s penetration,” Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). “This is the first such profile for the lunar south pole. Detailed observations are underway.”
Meanwhile, the rover has been busy exploring, although it had to change its course to avoid a 4-meter diameter crater.
