Chang'e-4 lunar probe, a Chinese space probe, touched down on the far side of the moon. The probe, which has a lander and a rover, that was launched in December made the soft landing and transmitted the first-ever close-range image of the far side of the moon. It touched down at a targeted area near the moon's south pole in the Von Karman Crater. The purpose of the Chang'e-4 includes astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform, and mineral makeup, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment of its far side. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so most of the far side or dark side is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none has landed on it. China's space agency hailed the event as a historic first and a major achievement for the country's space programme.
