First Panorama from China Lunar Probe Unveiled
China's moon-probing scientific crew recently has made the first panorama picture of Sinus Iridum, the landing area of China's Chang'e-3 lunar probe.
The State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) said Chang'e-3 has started conducting scientific surveys on the moon surface after its soft-landing last Saturday. The lander-mounted camera took 60 pictures while rotating in three angles: horizontal, 15 degrees down and 30 degrees down. Scientists spliced them into a wide-angle panorama, according to Liu Enhai, chief designer of the Chang'e-3 probing system.
The landing area looks even from the picture, with rocks and impact craters only surrounding it. Experts said the Chang'e-3 is the world's first spacecraft to have accomplished automatic hovering and obstacle avoidance, dodging a large impact crater about a dozen meters away from its landing point.
A lander-mounted camera also captured circling traces of the land rover Yutu, which were left as it marched off the moon lander first and then turned back to take pictures of each other.
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