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Schematic diagram of Chang’E-5 in-situ spectral and laboratory sample analysis. Despite representing what LI called the “weak end of lunar hydration features,” hydroxyl is to water what smoke is to fire: evidence. The molecules, made of one oxygen and one hydrogen atom, are the main ingredient of water, as well as the most common result of water molecules chemically reacting with other matter. “The results accurately answer the question of the distribution characteristics and source of water in the Chang’E-5 landing zone and provide a ground truth for the interpretation and estimation of water signals in remote sensing survey data.”Ĭhang’E-5 did not observe lunar rivers or springs rather the lander identified, on average, 30 hydroxyl parts per million in rocks and soil on the Moon’s surface. “For the first time in the world, the results of laboratory analysis of lunar return samples and spectral data from in-situ lunar surface surveys were used jointly to examine the presence, form, and amount of ‘water’ in lunar samples,” said co-corresponding author LI Chunlai from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). The researchers published their results today (June 14, 2022) in the journal Nature Communications. Now, the Chang’E-5 team has determined where the water came from. The finding was validated through laboratory analysis of samples the lander returned in 2021. These samples from the Moon’s Oceanus Procellarum, an ancient mare basalt whose name translates to “Ocean of Storms,” may now be able to calm at least one scientific squall: the source of lunar water.Ĭhina’s lunar lander Chang’E-5 delivered the first real-time, on-site definitive confirmation of water signal in the basalt’s rocks and soil via onboard spectral analysis in 2020.
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Scientists have been studying the samples ever since. The Chang’e 5 Ascender lifted off from the moon on December 3 and the Orbiter/Returner returned the samples to Earth on December 16, 2020.
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of lunar samples from a core about 3 feet deep. Similarly, Oceanus Procellarum was called an ocean due to its vast size, as it stretches more than 1,600 miles across.Īt its landing site on Oceanus Procellarum, Chang’e 5 collected over 60 oz. Maria (plural for mare), which translates in Latin to “seas” were named as such because early astronomers mistook them for actual seas. Oceanus Procellarum, which translates in Latin to “Ocean of Storms,” is a vast lunar mare - a dark, basaltic plain that was formed by volcanic activity triggered by ancient asteroid impacts on the far side of the Moon. It landed on the moon on December 1, 2020, in the Northern Oceanus Procellarum near a huge volcanic complex, Mons Rümker. Credit: CNSA/NASAĬhina’s first lunar sample-return mission, Chang’e 5, is the fifth lunar exploration mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, launched on November 23, 2020. ESTIMATEDįREE FALL IMPACT TIME-120 SECS.Artist’s illustration of China’s Chang’e 5 moon sample-return spacecraft. YOU MAY RESET FUEL RATE K EACH 10 SECS TO 0 OR ANY VALUEīETWEEN 8 & 200 LBS/SEC. If you have a UNIX-ish system with development tools installed, you should be able to build the executable and play the game by running this command:ĬONTROL CALLING LUNAR MODULE. David Ahl's port to BASIC in BASIC Computer Games (1978).
LUNAR LANDER CODE
Jim Storer's original lunar landing simulation code in FOCAL.One difference is that, on crashing into the moon surface, that program announced "IT'S ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTING", which confused me as a ten-year-old. The program here is pretty close to what I remember. I've rewritten it in C so that it can be built and run on modern systems. I did some research, and I found the original Lunar Lander program by Jim Storer, written in the FOCAL programming language in 1969. A couple of years later, my parents bought me a computer. So after that I kept bugging my dad to buy me books about programming. I saw that a computer would let me create little simulated universes that followed whatever rules I could imagine. It was simple, primitive even, but I was immediately fascinated with computers. I crashed, and then I had to get up to let the next kid take a turn. For each ten seconds of game time, it asks how much thrust you want to use, and then it tells you your new altitude, velocity, and remaining fuel. I wasn't impressed with the big sterile glass rooms filled with big blue computers, but there was a room in the basement where a couple of bearded guys asked me to sit down at a terminal and play a game. The first time I saw a computer was when my father took me to an open-house at the IBM headquarters in Atlanta in the late 1970's, when I was around ten years old. This is a port of a classic text-based "lunar lander" game to C.