China now has two history-making robots sending back images from an area of the Moon where humankind has never been before. This side of the Moon is distant and mysterious, but, despite pop culture references to the contrary, it isn’t always dark. In fact, after touching down on the lunar surface, the probe sent back a snapshot of its new home that shows a rocky, cratered, and distinctly lit landscape. China’s probe â€" which includes a lander and a rover â€" landed at 10:26 AM Thursday, Beijing time, as part of China’s Chang’e-4 mission to scout out the side of the Moon we can’t see from Earth. Since it takes the Moon roughly the same amount of time to spin around its axis as it does to orbit the Earth, we only see one half of the Moon: its near side. China’s landing on the Moon’s far side was a world first, in part because of the technical difficulties posed by that distance. It’s really difficult to get radio signals from Earth to robots on the far side â...
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