The rigoleth appears more "dirt"-ier than what we've seen from the near side. I would sure love to know the composition of that "soil". BTW, how is Chang'e 4 communicating with earth? Do the Chinese have a relay communications satellite in a halo orbit around EML-2?My sincerest congratulations to the Chinese for this accomplishment. It was well done!
Quote from: clongton on 01/03/2019 07:47 pmThe regolith appears more "dirt"-ier than what we've seen from the near side. I would sure love to know the composition of that "soil". BTW, how is Chang'e 4 communicating with earth? Do the Chinese have a relay communications satellite in a halo orbit around EML-2?My sincerest congratulations to the Chinese for this accomplishment. It was well done!The first pictures from Chang'e 3 were brownish like that, too. Similar regolith colors can be seen on some Apollo photographs, as well. It may have something to do with the camera's color calibration, or the lunar "morning" sun angle. More "noon" lunar time the surface may appear more gray because more light is bounced away into space.
The regolith appears more "dirt"-ier than what we've seen from the near side. I would sure love to know the composition of that "soil". BTW, how is Chang'e 4 communicating with earth? Do the Chinese have a relay communications satellite in a halo orbit around EML-2?My sincerest congratulations to the Chinese for this accomplishment. It was well done!
Quote from: whitelancer64 on 01/03/2019 08:46 pmQuote from: clongton on 01/03/2019 07:47 pmThe regolith appears more "dirt"-ier than what we've seen from the near side. I would sure love to know the composition of that "soil". BTW, how is Chang'e 4 communicating with earth? Do the Chinese have a relay communications satellite in a halo orbit around EML-2?My sincerest congratulations to the Chinese for this accomplishment. It was well done!The first pictures from Chang'e 3 were brownish like that, too. Similar regolith colors can be seen on some Apollo photographs, as well. It may have something to do with the camera's color calibration, or the lunar "morning" sun angle. More "noon" lunar time the surface may appear more gray because more light is bounced away into space. I'm not talking about the color. I'm looking at the texture. Look at the ridges of those tracks. Very well defined. Just does not look like the dusty regolith we saw on the near side.
China Focus: China's upgraded lunar rover drives on moon's far side.
A bit off-topic but I hope someone can answer a question. The Queqiao relay satellite is in Halo orbit. I understand that in a frame of reference rotating with the Earth-Moon axis the orbital "plane" remains the same, except for some small variation due to the nature of Halo orbit. This is the trick allowing the satellite to be in contact with Yutu-2 all time, as there is no obscuration during the 28 orbit of the Moon around the Earth.Is this correct? And if this is the case, how can this happen without consuming some relevant energy like for any change in the orbital plane? Who is "paying" for that in terms of potential or kinetic energy?
http://m.bldaily.com/china/news/p-373798.htmlA picture near the bottom of this report shows tentative plans for the early operations. It exactly mirrors what was done by the previous rover.