“Today the human race is a single twig on the tree of life, a single species on a single planet. Our condition can thus only be described as extremely fragile, endangered by forces of nature currently beyond our control, our own mistakes, and other branches of the wildly blossoming tree itself. Looked at this way, we can then pose the question of the future of humanity on Earth, in the solar system, and in the galaxy from the standpoint of both evolutionary biology and human nature. The conclusion is straightforward: Our choice is to grow, branch, spread and develop, or stagnate and die.”

Though the moon is familiar to humans since time immemorial, they were able to clearly see and appreciate the surface features of the moon only four centuries ago following the invention of the telescope. After the dawn of the space age in October 1957, moon became the prime target of exploration partly due to its proximity to Earth.

On october 22nd 2008, India wrote history with the launch of Chandrayaan-1 from the Second Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh state. Sriharikota is situated at a distance of about 80 km to the North of Chennai.

Chandrayaan-1 aims to achieve these well defined objectives through high resolution remote sensing of the moon in the visible, near infrared, microwave and X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. With this, preparation of a 3-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface and chemical mapping of entire lunar surface is envisaged. India aims its technological capability to expand its scientific knowledge about the moon and to provide challenging opportunities for planetary research to the younger generation of Indian scientists

Image Credit: ISRO