Chang'e-4 farside landing mission Options

[Phil Stooke]

Lunar day 33 ended recently but still no news. However, Andrew Jones has told me that the mission continues, Yutu 2 continues to move to the NW. We will just have to wait for news and then there can be a map update.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Andrew Jones tweets:

https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1433852235688067072


So Yutu 2 has driven about 30 m on each of the last 3 lunar days. Sadly, no other details of activities at the moment and not enough for a map update yet. Lunar day 34 has started - in fact by now we may be nearing the mid-day siesta.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Not getting many updates these days, though see the map thread for the last one. At this site:

https://moon.bao.ac.cn/web/zhmanager/notice...detailId=840997

the announcement of a new data release for Yutu 2 mentions that after lunar day 35 the total distance driven was 860 m (meaning 21 m during day 35). I haven't seen that reported anywhere else. We are now early in the 36th night but no word yet on activities during the 36th day.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

The 37th lunar day is just starting. No word yet on activities during day 36.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Here:

https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2021-12-03...my6613730.shtml

is a drive diary for lunar day 36. It's in Chinese but Google gives a reasonable translation. It describes some tricky driving to make progress during day 36. Also a large block on the rim of a crater on the northern horizon. No map update but I will see if I can figure something out.

Phil

EDIT: I added a composite of the 3 maps in that report, at least as I understand how they should fit together:



EDIT 2: Andrew Jones has tweeted a better source:

https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1466680626380218373

[Phil Stooke]

This link goes to an open access paper on China's planetary data system. It includes maps of the Yutu 2 and Zhurong paths.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-021-00862-3

Phil

[Huguet]

Yutu-2 has regained atention by spoting a complex object at the horizon.

https://twitter.com/latestinspace/status/1467609634823454720

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[Decepticon]

That must be Huge!

[volcanopele]

Any LROC NAC images of it? Looks large enough...

[Explorer1]

Apparently the nickname translated to English is 'mystery hut'! This is going to be like the 'gel' in the crater (just shocked glass) again, isn't it?
https://www.space.com/china-yutu-2-moon-rov...d-object-photos
It probably will not be at all cube shaped when seen up close....

[Huguet]

It probably will not be at all cube shaped when seen up close....

https://www.rt.com/news/542331-mystery-hut-far-side-moon/

It is not usual to have stretched structures on moon, because it receive many impact over time, mabe its is a new or recently exposed one.

It apears to be taken by Yutu navigation mode, or small grey photos. If it is they have a focal of 3396 px. I believe it is a 20 x 20 px structure.

This would give 262 feet by 3396 px times 20 px, it would be 1.54 feet or 50 cm wide, a small object. It apears to be far then 262 feet, but if they are saying this number it must be it.

[Phil Stooke]

No, it's the high resolution camera. The rock is 80 m north of where the rover was when it took the picture, on the rim of a crater, and it is not obvious in the LROC image I am using. Probably would be in a low sun image.

Phil

[Huguet]

No, it's the high resolution camera. The rock is 80 m north of where the rover was when it took the picture, on the rim of a crater, and it is not obvious in the LROC image I am using. Probably would be in a low sun image.

They have double the focal length,... +- 6792, that would give the structure a size less then 25 cm, if the 20 pix assumption is right... the full image is lot more blurred then the reduced version, but the public images of the object have a zoom of probably 4 times, so this 20 px can be wrong. If it is right yu would only slightly see it on NAC(narrow) photos (1 dot), would not be visible on the WAC(wide) ones... Showing image comparation based on 4 times zoom at spoted horizon made by 50% reduced and full images taken on 11 (reduced) and 28 Feb 2019 (full).

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[John Moore]

Note, too, that as the light direction is coming from the right (east), and we're seeing some kind of doubled feature type effect with a shadow in between,
the resolution in the camera may not be quite producing a single type exposure.

John

[Huguet]

Here follows a image taken on 28feb2019, with the lander at 70 m distance, full image. If the stone is 80 m from yutu-2 it is indeed very small. The chinese i find of the stone translate to Mystery Cabin, Mystery House or Mystery Little, only the last one make sense... For the others two the distance should be 262 meters, not feet...

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