Russia's Luna-25 lander sends stunning first picture from the Moon's orbit

Russia's Luna-25 lander has sent its first picture of the Moon after entering the lunar orbit on August 16. According to Roscosmos, the picture was taken at 10:53 am IST on August 17 and features the Zeeman Crater on the far side of the Moon near the South Pole. "Invisible from Earth, the Zeeman crater is a unique object on the lunar surface and is of great interest to researchers - the height of the shaft surrounding it reaches 8 kilometers above the surface of a relatively flat bottom," Roscosmos said in a telegram post. 

_{(Picture of the lunar surface sent by Russia's Luna-25 lander. Image: Roscosmos)}

During its flyby over this region, the Luna-25 carried out observations and gathered data on gamma rays, plasma and the lunar exosphere, the thin atmosphere enveloping the Moon. Notably, the far side of the Moon is the side that is not visible from Earth and the Soviet Union's Luna-3 mission was the first to photograph it in October 1959. 

_{(Earth and Moon photographed by Luna-25 from a distance of 310,000 km from Earth; Image: Roscosmos)}

The Luna-25 is the first Moon mission from Russian soil since 1976, the last being Luna-24. This mission is targeted for landing near the Boguslawsky Crater at the South Pole, the same as India's Chandrayaan-3 mission which is also currently in the lunar orbit. Chandrayaan-3, which included the Lander Module (LM) and the Propulsion Module (PM), was launched on July 14 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center and it entered the lunar orbit on August 5. According to ISRO, Vikram Lander, which separated from the PM earlier on Thursday, will touch down on the lunar surface at 5:47 pm IST on August 23. 

_{(The Vikram lander; Image: ISRO)}

_{(The Luna-25 lander; Image: Roscosmos)}

As for the Luna-25 mission, it is designed to last one year, as opposed to Chandrayaan-3's 14-day-long mission, and will look for ice deposits believed to be in abundance in the lunar south pole. With eight payloads weighing 31 kg, Luna-25 will also study the Moon's atmosphere, radiation levels and analyse the lunar soil.