Yutu 2 on the Moon

The far side of the moon and its mysteries

Yutu 2 on the Moon

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• The story: The Yutu–2 is a Chinese lunar rover launched to the moon in China's Chang’e 4 mission. It was launched in 2018 and landed on the moon in 2019. The rover has spotted a cube–shaped mystery hut on the far side of the moon. A likely explanation for the object is that it can be a larger boulder that was excavated by an impact event.
• Chang’e 4 mission: As the name suggests, Change’e 4 was the fourth lunar mission of China. The Chang’e 1 and Chang’e 2 missions were orbiters. The Chang’e 3 landed on the near side of the moon with Yutu – 1. Chang’e 5 mission brought moon sample to the earth.

1. Yutu – 2 is a solar-powered craft, propelled by six wheels. It landed in Von Karman crater.
2. It captured Lunar Ejecta Sequence for first time.
3. The Yutu – 2 is equipped with a radioisotope heater unit, used to heat the subsystems in the rover during long lunar nights. It set record of traversing for a greater number of lunar days. It continuously traversed the lunar surface for 11 days. Earlier, the record was held by Lunokhod – 1 rover of Russia. This was possible because of the heater unit. It takes 29 earth days for the moon to complete one lunar day or to complete one rotation around its axis. This means that the nights in moon are longer. Thus, the heater unit is mandatory to increase the functioning of the rover.

• Selenology: In 2020, human scientists reported high resolution image of Lunar Ejecta Sequence for the first time. The geology of the moon is called Selenology. As the moon lacks true atmosphere, and does not hold any known actions of plate tectonics, its geology is fundamentally different. It has a lower gravity, and cooled faster. Its surface was formed by volcanism and cratering.
• Far side of the moon: The rotation and revolution period of the moon are equal. The time taken by the moon to make one complete revolution around the earth and the time taken by the moon to make one complete rotation along its axis is the same. This is why, the earth is constantly seeing only one side of the moon. The earth has never seen the other side - the far side of the moon.
• Why "far side" and "tidal locking": If you could look at the moon orbiting the Earth, you'd see that it orbits once on its axis exactly as long as it takes to orbit once around our planet. The moon is "tidally locked" with Earth, showing its same face to Earth always. The moon isn't alone, as all major moons of Jupiter and Saturn show the same face to their parent. Pluto and Charon are even stranger, as the two worlds are locked, facing one another for all eternity. Why does this happen? The moon is pulling at the Earth, causing the tides. The pull of the moon is so strong that the ground itself rises up 30 cm, about a foot, as it passes by. But it's even more powerful on the moon. The gravity from the Earth distorts the moon into an oblong shape. The sides pointed towards and away from the Earth bulge outward, while the others are pulled inward to compensate. It makes the moon football shaped. 

1. In the ancient past, shortly after its formation, the moon was spinning rapidly. This meant that the part of the moon bulged towards us was changing constantly, like water tides on Earth. Vast amounts of rock need to shift and change shape to bulge towards the Earth and then settle down again, and this takes time. The position of the bulges on the moon were always a little out of alignment with the pull of gravity of the Earth. These bulges acted like handles that the Earth's gravity could grab onto, and torque it back into place. Over time, the Earth's gravity slowed down the rotation speed of the moon until it stopped, forever.
2. This same process happened on all the large moons in the solar system. Because of its smaller mass, our moon became tidally locked to the Earth billions of years ago. Now the process is continuing to make the Earth tidally locked to the moon as well. In the distant future (50 billion years!), the moon will stop moving in the sky, and hang motionless, visible from only half the Earth.

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