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Chandrayaan-3 Rover Rolls Onto Moon's Surface as India Celebrates

A man reads a daily hindi newspaper with front page reporting on successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon, in New Delhi on August 24, 2023. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP)
A man reads a daily hindi newspaper with front page reporting on successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon, in New Delhi on August 24, 2023. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP)
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Chandrayaan-3 Rover Rolls Onto Moon's Surface as India Celebrates

A man reads a daily hindi newspaper with front page reporting on successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon, in New Delhi on August 24, 2023. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP)
A man reads a daily hindi newspaper with front page reporting on successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon, in New Delhi on August 24, 2023. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP)

The moon rover of India's Chandrayaan-3 exited the spacecraft on Thursday to begin its exploration of the lunar surface and conduct experiments to help future probes, as the media hailed the historic landing as the country's biggest scientific feat. The spacecraft landed on the unexplored south pole of the moon on Wednesday evening, days after Russia's Luna-25 failed, making India the first country to achieve this feat.
The soft, textbook touchdown by the lander after a failed attempt in 2019 sparked widespread jubilation and celebration in the world's most populous country. "The Ch-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander and India took a walk on the moon!" the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
ISRO chief S. Somanath said the "Pragyan" rover had two instruments to conduct element and chemical composition experiments.
"More than that it will do the roving on the surface, we will also do a robotic path planning exercise which is very important for us for future exploration," Somanath told Indian news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake. Accomplished with a budget of about 6.15 billion rupees ($75 million), this was India's second attempt to touch down on the moon. A previous mission in 2019, Chandrayaan-2, successfully deployed an orbiter but its lander crashed. Chandrayaan means "moon vehicle" in Hindi and Sanskrit. Chandrayaan-3 is expected to remain functional for two weeks which equals one lunar day when its solar-powered equipment is built to last. The moon's rugged south pole is coveted because of its water ice, which is believed to be capable of providing fuel, oxygen, and drinking water for future missions, but its rough terrain makes landing challenging.
People across the country tuned in to watch the landing on Wednesday, with nearly 7 million people viewing the YouTube live stream alone.
Prayers were also held at places of worship, and schools organized live screenings of the spectacle for students.
Besides boosting India's standing as a space power and its reputation for cost-competitive space engineering, the landing is also seen as a major moment of national pride.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was being congratulated by everyone since Wednesday evening and the world saw the successful landing not as one country's achievement but that of all of humanity.

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Scientists Drill Nearly 2 Miles Down to Pull 1.2 Million-year-old Ice Core from Antarctic

An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP
An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP
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Scientists Drill Nearly 2 Miles Down to Pull 1.2 Million-year-old Ice Core from Antarctic

An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP
An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP

An international team of scientists announced Thursday they’ve successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet, penetrating nearly 2 miles (2.8 kilometers) to Antarctic bedrock to reach ice they say is at least 1.2 million years old.

Analysis of the ancient ice is expected to show how Earth's atmosphere and climate have evolved. That should provide insight into how Ice Age cycles have changed, and may help in understanding how atmospheric carbon changed climate, they said, The AP reported.

“Thanks to the ice core we will understand what has changed in terms of greenhouse gases, chemicals and dusts in the atmosphere,” said Carlo Barbante, an Italian glaciologist and coordinator of Beyond EPICA, the project to obtain the core. Barbante also directs the Polar Science Institute at Italy's National Research Council.

The same team previously drilled a core about 800,000 years old. The latest drilling went 2.8 kilometers (about 1.7 miles) deep, with a team of 16 scientists and support personnel drilling each summer over four years in average temperatures of about minus-35 Celsius (minus-25.6 Fahrenheit).

Italian researcher Federico Scoto was among the glaciologists and technicians who completed the drilling at the beginning of January at a location called Little Dome C, near Concordia Research Station.

“It was a great a moment for us when we reached the bedrock,” Scoto said. Isotope analysis gave the ice's age as at least 1.2 million years old, he said.

Both Barbante and Scoto said that thanks to the analysis of the ice core of the previous Epica campaign they have assessed that concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, even during the warmest periods of the last 800,000 years, have never exceeded the levels seen since the Industrial Revolution began.

“Today we are seeing carbon dioxide levels that are 50% above the highest levels we’ve had over the last 800,000 years," Barbante said.

The European Union funded Beyond EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) with support from nations across the continent. Italy is coordinating the project.

The announcement was exciting to Richard Alley, a climate scientist at Penn State who was not involved with the project and who was recently awarded the National Medal of Science for his career studying ice sheets.

Alley said advancements in studying ice cores are important because they help scientists better understand the climate conditions of the past and inform their understanding of humans’ contributions to climate change in the present. He added that reaching the bedrock holds added promise because scientists may learn more about Earth’s history not directly related to the ice record itself.

“This is truly, truly, amazingly fantastic,” Alley said. “They will learn wonderful things.”