Chinese lunar lander’s telescope is still working a year and a half later

The Chang'E 3 lander, as imaged by the rover Yutu. (credit: Wikimedia commons)

In 2013, China became the most recent nation to land hardware on the Moon. It successfully placed the Chang'E 3 lander on the surface of the Mare Imbrium, near the lunar north pole. The lander then deployed a rover named Yutu, which explored the surface for several weeks before suffering a mechanical failure. Communications with the rover were lost completely earlier this year.

Often forgotten in the focus on the rover is the fact that Chang'E 3 had a variety of scientific instruments on board. And recently, the scientists behind one of them provided a progress update on their hardware, a UV telescope. Despite the harsh lunar environment, the telescope has now sent back 18 months of data and is still going strong.

UV radiation is more energetic than visible light and marks some of the Universe's most active processes, such as star formation. But it can't be done from Earth, as our atmosphere (thankfully) absorbs most UV radiation. As such, it has primarily been pursued using orbital observatories.