Japan led off a new international wave of exploration in 2007 with its second Moon probe, Kaguya, also known as Selene. Kaguya carried a twin-camera system that sent some astonishingly detailed three-dimensional views of the surface, including the Apollo landing sites. Superb flyover movies of the surface were made by the high-definition TV system, while other instruments studied the surface composition and topography. Two subsatellites, Okina and Ouna, were released to measure the gravitational field of the Moon. 

Another nation embarking on lunar exploration is India. The Indian Space Research Organization’s first Moon probe, Chandrayaan-1, meaning ‘Moon craft’ in Sanskrit, was launched in 2008. Several of its instruments were devoted to studies of the Moon’s crustal composition, including the Moon Mineralogy Mapper supplied by NASA which found signs of water at the Moon’s poles, making these areas of particular interest for future exploration. 

But it is China that has been undertaking the most ambitious exploration of all with a series named Chang’e, after a Chinese Moon goddess. The first, Chang’e-1, was launched in October 2007 and made a detailed 3D photographic map of the entire Moon. A second orbiter, Chang’e 2, followed three years later with improved instruments. In December 2013 Chang’e 3 landed in the northern Mare Imbrium carrying a small rover called Yutu (‘Jade Rabbit’). 

An even more remarkable advance came in 2019 January when Chang’e 4 made the first-ever landing on the far side of the Moon with another rover, Yutu 2. At the end of 2020 Chang’e 5 brought back 1.7 kg of lunar samples from a volcanic area on the Oceanus Procellarum, the first new lunar samples since Russia’s Luna 24 in 1976. In 2024 June Chang’e 6 brought back the first samples from the far side of the Moon. All these missions are providing much new information about previously unexplored regions of the Moon and, in the case of China, may well lead to future manned missions. 

Earth over the Moon’s south pole from the Japanese probe Kaguya