Chandrayaan 2 captures craters on moon’s surface

Jackson, Mach, Sommerfeld and Mitra, a crater named after an Indian physicist, Indian National Space Organization (ISRO) on Monday released a series of images of craters captured by Chandrayaan 2 on the lunar surface.

The images released by the space agency were captured by the Terrain Mapping Camera-2 (TMC-2) aboard the spacecraft on August 23, when it was passing over the north polar region of the moon.

India’s second mission to the moon, Chandrayaan 2, was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 23 and is currently revolving around the moon at an altitude of about 4,375 km. It carries an orbiter, lander Vikram and rover Pragyan loaded with as many as 13 payloads.

The lunar surface is covered with a large number of craters, most of which were formed when asteroids or meteorites moving at extremely high speed crashed onto the surface of earth's satellite. The impact not only sends massive shockwaves through the ground, but end up creating craters.

Among the several craters Chandrayaan 2 caught on camera is Mitra, an impact crater with a diameter of 92 km, which is named after noted Indian physicist Sisir Kumar Mitra. known for his pioneering work in the field of ionosphere and radiophysics. The crater is located at the western outer rim of another crater called Mach.

The images also show a crater called Jackson, located in the northern hemisphere of the far side of the moon thar has a diameter of nearly 71 km. The Korolev crater seen in the image is a 437 km crater which has several small craters of varying sizes. There is another well formed crater, Kirkwood, named after the American astronomer Daniel Kirkwood.

Sommerfeld is a crater on the far side of the moon with a diameter of nearly 169 km. It stands out distinctively with a relatively flat interior surrounded by a ring mountain and a number of smaller craters along the edge. It is named after Arnold Sommerfeld, a German physicist who was a pioneer in the field of atomic and quantum physics.

The spacecraft also captured Hermite, which was discovered by NASA in 2009 and is believed to be the coldest place in the solar system, with temperatures touching -247 °C.

Chandrayaan 2 is now only days away from D-Day, September 7, when it will attempt touchdown on the moon.