China's space experts have predicted that the country will
publish the whole lunar 3D image in January next year.
On Monday, China published its first moon image sent back by its
lunar probe Chang'e-1, named after a mythical Chinese goddess who
flew to the moon.
The picture was pieced together from 19 images, each covering a
width of 60 kilometers of the moon's surface. The area covered by
the picture, about 460 kilometers in length and 280 kilometers in
width, is located within a 54 to 70 degrees south latitude and 57
to 83 degrees east longitude on the moon, according to sources with
Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC).
Wu Ji, director of the Center of Space Science and Applied
Research under CAS, the China Academy of Sciences, explained that
the released image is a 2D picture, and researchers are working on
the data sent back to formulate a 3D image, hoping to publish the
picture as soon as possible.
The camera aboard China's lunar probe Chang'e-1 is a high
performance CCD (Charge Coupled Device) stereo camera, which has
three lenses to take photos of the lunar surface from three
different angles to build up a 3D image.
Hao Xifan, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration Center of
China's Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National
Defense, said that the 3D image will possibly be published in
January next year.
Chang'e-1 is expected to photograph the whole lunar surface in a
month, as the moon's rotation period is one month.
After Chang'e-1 sends back the data, researchers have to spend
months piecing together the data and complete the entire lunar
surface image.
Jiang Jingshan, designer with the Chinese Lunar Orbiting
Exploration program, said he was nervous when the camera first sent
back a black image. But after a few seconds, clear images of the
moon craters appeared, bringing much excitement to the space
center.
Beijing Times reported that the Chief scientist Ouyang
Ziyuan appraised the first image as very good. He said the image
was only the start of Chang'e-1's exploration of the moon, and
other pieces of equipment aboard the probe were still under
testing.
(CRI November 27, 2007)