These are the first images of the Japanese moon landing

Japanese space agency Jaxa has released the first images of the historic landing of its Slim space probe on the moon. The spacecraft “managed to make a precise soft landing,” Jaxa explained on Thursday when the first images were published.

Shortly after the successful landing on Saturday, the probe was shut down due to power problems. At the same time as this bad news, space organization Jaxa expressed the hope on Monday that a restart could still be successful if the sun’s rays were beneficial for Slim’s solar cells.

The evaluation of the data collected during the landing should, among other things, clarify whether the 2.40 meter long and 1.70 meter wide spacecraft achieved the goal of entering the Shioli crater within the planned radius of one hundred meters to land. Slim has now apparently succeeded in this.

Smart was Japan’s third attempt at a moon landing after two failed missions. Previously, only the US, the Soviet Union, China and India had successfully landed on the moon. Now Japan has become the fifth country to achieve such success. The Japanese space agency had previously achieved a precision landing on an asteroid, but the challenge is greater on the moon, where gravity is stronger. (sda/afp)