The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday made public scientific data related to the Chandrayaan-3 mission, on the first anniversary of the success of the mission, for researchers across the world for analysis. The agency has made public over 55 gigabytes (GB) of data obtained from five payloads on the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover. India created history on August 23 last year when the Chandrayaan-3 mission landed on the southern region of the Moon.
“This data will not be restricted to the scientists who built those instruments but will be made available to all researchers in the country and the world for analysis,” ISRO chief S.S. Somnath said at the National Space Day celebrations here. The Chandrayaan-3 data sets are available on the policy-based Data Retrieval, Analysis, Dissemination and Notification System (PRADAN) portal of the Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC).
Pragyan Rover conducted terrestrial chemical analysis of the lunar surface, which has led to a better understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon. This information is important for future exploration and potential resource utilization on the Moon. Scientists at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad, after studying the data from Chandrayaan-3, have speculated that the Moon evolved from a vast ocean of magma that later cooled down.
