Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter Maps Moon's Surface To Look For Minerals & Understand Lunar Composition

Even though Vikram Lander lost all communication with ground stations during its final 2.1-km descent, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) did not lose hope and tried everything to re-establish contact with Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.

Now, ISRO has released a picture that were captured by the orbiter. It captured an illuminated image of the moon and also measured the variation in the sunlight reflected by the moon¡¯s surface.

The image will help us understand the composition of the moon¡¯s surface (its origin and evolution) better. As we know that the moon doesn¡¯t have light of its own and what it does is reflect the sunlight that hits the lunar surface. There are variations in the sunlight that the moon reflects and these variations happens due to the composition of minerals on the lunar surface.

Here is the picture:

#ISRO
See the first illuminated image of the lunar surface acquired by #Chandrayaan2¡¯s IIRS payload. IIRS is designed to measure reflected sunlight from the lunar surface in narrow and contiguous spectral channels.
For details visit:https://t.co/C3STg4H79S pic.twitter.com/95N2MpebY4

¡ª ISRO (@isro) October 17, 2019

A particular area of the moon that is rich in a certain mineral will always reflect the sunlight differently than another area that is rich in some other mineral. And that is why clicking the variations can give us an insight into the composition of the moon¡¯s surface.

Identifying the elements, seeing the lunar surface will definitely help us in understanding the moon better.

NASA also tried to establish the contact with Vikram Lander and sent 'hello' messages to the Indian lander in hopes to connect with it. NASA¡¯s Jet Propulsion Laboratory beamed a radio frequency to Vikram to establish contact with it.