China has named the landing site of its Chang’e-4 lunar probe “Statio Tianhe” –after the Chinese name for the Milky Way Galaxy for the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon last month. The Chang’e-4 probe, launched on December 8, landed on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on January 3. As of today, a total of 12 lunar features have been named by China.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) landed the robotic probe Chang’e 4 in the unexplored South Pole-Aitken basin, the oldest, deepest, crater on the moon’s surface and the largest in the Solar System. The probe sent back world’s first close shot (below) of the lunar far side.
