The Chinese Chang’e 3 spacecraft has landed successfully on the Moon: Live: China lands moon probe – China.org.cn Live
China’s lunar probe Chang’e 3 made a successful landing on the moon on Saturday night, Beijing Time, marking China’s first spacecraft to soft-land on the surface of an extraterrestrial body.
The first image transmitted by the downward-looking camera.
The Yutu (“Jade Rabbit”) rover will be deployed in a few hours.
- Chang’e-3 Lunar Probe – CCTV.com English
- China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon – BBC
- China’s Chang’e-3 and Jade Rabbit duo land on the Moon – NASASpaceFlight.com
Update: The landing occurred about an hour earlier than expected from press reports. Here is a video of an English Chinese TV broadcast at the time of the landing:
http://youtu.be/A_cgi8U3Fsc
Update 2: This article and video describe the lander and rover in some detail: Crossover: 720 seconds of Chang´e-3 moon landing CCTV News – CNTV English
Update 3: Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society has lots of good stuff about the event including the following sequence of images below that were sent during the landing: Chang’e 3 has successfully landed on the Moon! – The Planetary Society
CCTV
And here is a color image as well:
Image of the lunar surface from Chang’e 3 lander