China’s Chang’e 6 Moon probe has a mysterious guest on board

China’s Chang’e 6 lunar probe ngo is bound for nan acold broadside of nan Moon, and location seems to beryllium a mini rover affixed to nan broadside of nan lander, arsenic seen successful caller images released by nan China Academy of Space Technology (CAST).

China’s National Space Administration announced coming that nan probe, which launched past week, has successfully entered nan Moon’s orbit, a large measurement toward landing nan spacecraft early adjacent month.

But arsenic Space.com reports, group person noticed that CAST’s published images show a mysterious mini rover — 1 that seems excessively mini for a semipermanent mission. The Shanghai Institute of Ceramics hints connected its website location mightiness beryllium an infrared imaging spectrometer connected committee that could beryllium utilized to observe h2o successful ungraded and rocks, arsenic explained by SpaceNews.

China disclosed small connected nan Chang’e 6’s objectives. It’s known wherever it will onshore and that there’s a extremity to bring backmost samples to Earth — akin to China’s postulation of nearside samples connected nan Chang’e 5 ngo successful 2020. It’s besides carrying payloads from France, Sweden, and Italy, arsenic good arsenic a Pakistani CubeSat.

This isn’t nan first clip China sent a astonishment instrumentality to space. During China’s Tianwen-1 ngo to Mars successful 2021, nan CNSA protector dropped a camera that took a selfie of nan Zhurong rover.