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January 14, 2019

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Scientists chilled out on far side of moon

Source: Xinhua | 00:13 UTC+8 January 14, 2019 | Print Edition

THE Chang’e-4 probe, which has made the first soft landing on the far side of the moon, will allow scientists to accurately measure temperatures.

Scientists estimate that the highest temperature during the day might reach 127 degrees Celsius, while the lowest at night could fall to minus 183 degrees.

In 2013, China launched Chang’e-3, the country’s first spacecraft to soft-land on the moon.

“It was a success, but Chang’e-3 was designed according to foreign temperature data,” said Zhang He, executive director of the Chang’e-4 probe project, from the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). “Without our own data about lunar temperatures, we don’t know how cold a lunar night can actually be.

“Chang’e-4 will measure the temperature differences between the day and night on the moon, helping scientists estimate the properties of the lunar soil.”

Tan Mei, a consultant for the probe from CAST, said Chang’e-4 will switch to a “sleep mode” during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power, and rely on the radioisotope heat source, a collaboration between Chinese and Russian scientists, to keep warm.

“We need to transform heat into power to run the thermometry to measure the temperatures of the lunar surface at night,” Tan said.

The lander is equipped with dozens of temperature data collectors, and the data they collect at night will be transmitted after the probe is wakened during the moon’s daytime, said Li Fei, a designer of the lander from CAST.

Sun Zezhou, the chief designer of the Chang’e-4 probe from CAST, said the probe will get first-hand data by directly measuring the temperatures of the lunar soil, the probe and its key interior equipment during the lunar night.

Used for the first time in a Chinese spacecraft, the isotope thermoelectric generation technology on Chang’e-4 is a prototype for future deep-space explorations, Sun said.

“It is a technology that we must master if we want to go to the moon’s polar regions or deep space farther than Jupiter, where solar power cannot be used as the primary power source,” he said.

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