Has the Mystery of the 'Alien Hut' Spotted on the Moon by China's Rover Finally Been Solved?
© AP Photo / China National Space Administration/Xinhua News Agency
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As China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover spotted a peculiar shape, dubbed the “moon cube,” late last year, according to Andrew Jones, a journalist who had covered Beijing’s space programme for several years. On 3 December he posted pictures captured by the rover in the Von Kármán crater on the far side of the Moon.
The enigmatic “Moon rock” discovery made by China's Yutu-2 lunar rover in early December, which triggered speculations that it might be an "alien" house or spacecraft, is apparently no longer a mystery.
After several weeks of driving, the rover has come close enough to discover that the “mysterious hut” is, in fact, a rock.
In an updated post on Friday, Our Space - a Chinese language science outreach channel affiliated with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) - published the rover's latest photo of the object that had appeared to be sharp-lined in geometric appearance on the horizon. Most likely, the latter had been simply a trick of perspective, light, and shadow.
BREAKING: China’s lunar rover finally made it to the “cube-shaped anomaly” it photographed last month
— Latest in space (@latestinspace) January 7, 2022
It was just a moon rock pic.twitter.com/9nwbogzuAD
It was noted that the rock was shaped like a rabbit, with smaller rocks in front of it suggested as resembling a carrot. The rock has now been dubbed the “Jade Rabbit”, after the name of the rover.
In January 2019, China became the first nation to land a rover on the far side of the Moon, permanently hidden from Earth.
The solar-powered Yutu 2 and Chang’e 4 lander touched down on 3 January 2019. Since then, the rover has been rolling through the 115-mile-wide (186 kilometers) Von Kármán crater.
Yutu 2 rover spotted the mystery object - a gray “cube” - looming on the horizon roughly 260 feet (80 meters) away in November 2021 during the mission's 36th lunar day, according to Our Space. It was referred to as a "mystery hut".
Ah. We have an update from Yutu-2 on the lunar far side, including an image of a cubic shape on the northern horizon ~80m away from the rover in Von Kármán crater. Referred to as "神秘小屋" ("mystery house"), the next 2-3 lunar days will be spent getting closer to check it out. pic.twitter.com/LWPZoWN05I
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) December 3, 2021
The CNSA estimated the rover would take two or three months to reach the cube, as Yutu-2, albeit designed to move at a maximum speed of 200 metres per hour, in reality, does not traverse the terrain at full speed.
10 December 2021, 17:43 GMT
Furthermore, the craft also makes stops to conduct research, and it has to halt its operations when it becomes too cold during the lunar night.
The world’s most long-lived lunar rover, as of December 2021, Yutu-2 has travelled a distance of 840 metres (2,760 ft) along the surface of the Moon.
