EVANSTON, Ill. --- For the first time ever, space exploration reached the far side of the moon when China landed a lunar rover today (Jan. 3). Seth Jacobson of Northwestern University is available to explain the moon’s landscape, the science behind the landing and why this triumph is so difficult.
Jacobson is an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. An expert in planetary science, he studies how the terrestrial planets, including Earth and the moon, formed. He can be reached at [email protected] and 847-491-3459 (office).
Quote from Professor Seth Jacobson:“The moon’s far side appears dramatically different than the familiar near-side, with more light-colored mountainous terrain, fewer lava-filled basins and the moon's largest and deepest basin (called the South Pole-Aitken Basin) stretching from the South Pole to near the equator. The Chang'e 4 spacecraft landed in the smaller Von Kármán crater which is within this larger basin, and with the help of its rover Yutu, it will search for and study lunar geology. Chang'e 4 will also conduct low frequency astrophysical radio experiments, which are difficult to do from anywhere else because the far side of the moon is shielded from interfering human-created radio emission by the moon itself."
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