Chandrayan's 3 'Pragyan' is Exploring Moon's Surface
The "Pragyan" rover from India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft started exploring the moon's surface on Thursday morning. This information was shared by the country's space agency on a messaging platform called X, which used to be called Twitter.
On Wednesday evening, a special vehicle from India landed on a part of the moon that had never been visited before. This happened a few days after a similar vehicle from Russia couldn't make it there. So, India became the first country to successfully do this exciting thing!
India tried to land on the moon again after a previous mission didn't go as planned. They had a budget of about Rs. 615 crore ($74.58 million) for this mission. The first mission in 2019 was able to put a satellite around the moon, but the part that was supposed to land on the moon crashed instead.
Chandrayaan is a special name for a vehicle that goes to the moon. It comes from the languages Hindi and Sanskrit, and it means "moon vehicle".
The bottom part of the moon has a lot of bumpy land that people want because it has frozen water that can be used for important things like fuel, air, and water to drink on future trips. But it's hard to land there because the ground is very rough.
Many people from all over the country watched the landing on Wednesday, and almost 7 million people watched it on YouTube. People went to their places of worship to pray, and schools showed the event on a big screen for students to watch.
Chandrayaan-3 will work for about two weeks and do different tests, like using a special tool to study what the moon is made of.