The Pragyan rover of India's third lunar exploration -- Chandrayaan-3 -- made a major new discovery on the moon's surfa🐎ce at 𒁃the southern high-latitude landing site.
According to a new analysis 🍎of data from the rover, deployed by the Vඣikram lander, there have been findings about the distribution of rock fragments at the landing site.
The Pragyan rover traversed around 103 m🔯eters on the lunar surface in a single lunar day, marking a significant milestone in India's exploration of the lunar space.
Reportedly, these new findings were revealed in a ⛄paper that was presented earlier this year at the International Conference on Planets, Exoplanets and Habitability in Ahmedabad.
Small rock fragments distributed around the rim, wall slopes a♎nd the floor of small craters at the landing site were observed by the rover.
The rover's journey, according to an India Today report, took place in an area of notꦓable scientific interest, which is between the Manzinus and Bogu𓆏lawsky.
The landing site🍎 of the Vikram lander -- which carried the rover in its underbelly -- is designated as the "Shiv Shakti Point" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And navigating about 39 metres towards the west of this Shiv Shakti Point, the Pragyan rover started finding an increase number and size of rock fragments.
As per the findings, the size of these rock fragments ranged from one to 11.5 cms. It added that the source behind the frag⛦mented rocks could be a crater, with nearly a 10-metre diameter.
The findings presented at the ICPEH said that this crater likely excavated and redistributed these rock fragments around the west side of the landing site. These fragments were eve🙈ntually buried multiple times, given the lunar regolith overturni💖ng mechanism, the report said.
ꦗSubsequently, the Pragyan rover encountered these fragments which were exposed bꦅy the small craters.
Of these fragments, two indicated evidence of degradation, suggesting that had been subjected to space weathering. This is an valuable observation on the ꧅processes that affect the lunar surface materials with time.
The Chandrayaan-3🎃 mission contributes to getting a more deepened understanding of the geology and composition of the lunar surface.
India's third lunar mission made history on August 💛23, 2023 after making a soft landing near the south pole of the moon, making th𝔍e nation to be only the fourth to achieve a 'soft-landing'.
The objectives of Chandrayaan-3, according t♎o the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), are to demonst🍌rate safe and soft landing on lunar surface, to demonstrate rover roving on the moon and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.
