Chandrayaan-2, now just 2650 Kms away from the Moon, released the first set of pictures from inside the Moon’s orbit, reports the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Steadily making its way towards the Moon, India’s second orbiter in Lunar probing history is expected to reach the unventured south pole region in the next 10 days.
It had successfully entered the lunar orbit on Tuesday, August 20.
While settling in the orbit, the lunar mission had unprecedented view of the incredible Moon and snapped some pictures for us Earthlings.
At an altitude of 4375 from the Moon, a Terrain Mapping Camera 2 (TMC-2) captured images of the Moon’s craters on Friday, August 23.
The photographs show you noteworthy impact craters such as Jackson, Mitra, Mach and Korolev.
In another image, a couple of other impact craters, namely Sommerfeld and Kirkwood, were photographed.
While Jackson lies in the Northern Hemisphere, another impact crater Mitra lies at the western outer rim of Mach crater.
Mitra, named after Indian Physicist Prof. Sisir Kumar Mitra, is 92 kilometres in diameter. The Korolev crater seen in the image is a 437-kilometre crater which has several small dents of various sizes.
On the other far side towards the northern latitudes lie craters Sommerfeld and Kirkwood.
Where Sommerfeld is a 169-kilometre diametric surface, Kirkwood is approximately 68 kilometres in diameter.
Chandrayaan-2 will take the next step when it attempts to move to its third lunar-bound manoeuvre on Wednesday, August 28.
Here, the lander Vikram will separate itself from the orbiter and is expected to land on the lunar surface by September 2.
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