Chandrayaan 3 gets to work; ISRO releases first observation data from moon's south pole

BENGALURU: India's Chandrayaan 3 has made its first data collection from the South Pole of the Moon. ISRO has received information about the temperature of the South Pole that was inaccessible to the scientific world. ISRO shared data collected by Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), a part of the Vikram lander.

ISRO had earlier informed that the rover had come out of the lander and started its expedition, after the soft landing on August 23. ISRO had arranged four payloads on the lander itself for various types of test observations. The main purpose of ChaSTE, one of these payloads, is to study soil temperatures on the moon. ChaSTE is a rod-shaped device consisting of ten sensors. ChaSTE's sensors are lowered into the lunar surface to measure the temperature difference.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
Here are the first observations from the ChaSTE payload onboard Vikram Lander.

ChaSTE (Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment) measures the temperature profile of the lunar topsoil around the pole, to understand the thermal behaviour of the moon's… pic.twitter.com/VZ1cjWHTnd

— ISRO (@isro) August 27, 2023

According to ChaSTE's observations, the temperature on the lunar surface is 50 degrees Celsius, but it drops to minus 10 degrees when it descends eight centimetres. These figures indicate the thermal resistance of the lunar surface. Since there is no atmosphere, the temperature on the moon's surface fluctuates rapidly. Therefore, the data collected by ChaSTE will be crucial for a deeper study of the temperature variation and thermal resistance of the lunar surface. It is estimated that the analysis of such data will make it possible to determine whether the Moon is habitable.