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from https://apnews.com/article/japan-jaxa-moon-probe-slim-78edbd90fd46837d272277700431ed95

Japan’s moon lander wasn’t built to survive a weekslong lunar night.
It’s still going after 3
This image provided by SLIM official X account @SLIM_JAXA shows a part
of the moon surface taken by Japan’s first moon lander called SLIM on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Japan’s first moon lander has survived a third freezing lunar night, Japan’s space agency said Wednesday, April 24,
after receiving an image from the device three months after it landed on
the moon. (SLIM official X account @SLIM_JAXA via AP)
This image provided by SLIM official X account @SLIM_JAXA shows a part
of the moon surface taken by Japan’s first moon lander called SLIM on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Japan’s first moon lander has survived a third freezing lunar night, Japan’s space agency said Wednesday, April 24,
after receiving an image from the device three months after it landed on
the moon. (SLIM official X account @SLIM_JAXA via AP)

BY MARI YAMAGUCHI
Updated 1:24 AM PDT, April 24, 2024
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TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s first moon lander has survived a third freezing
lunar night, Japan’s space agency said Wednesday after receiving an
image from the device three months after it landed on the moon.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the lunar probe responded to
a signal from the earth Tuesday night, confirming it has survived
another weekslong lunar night.

Temperatures can fall to minus 170 degrees Celsius (minus 274 degrees Fahrenheit) during a lunar night, and rise to around 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) during a lunar day.

The probe, Smart Lander for Investing Moon, or SLIM, reached the lunar
surface on Jan. 20, making Japan the fifth country to successfully place
a probe on the moon. SLIM on Jan. 20 landed the wrong way up with its
solar panels initially unable to see the sun, and had to be turned off
within hours, but powered on when the sun rose eight days later.

SLIM, which was tasked with testing Japan’s pinpoint landing technology
and collecting geological data and images, was not designed to survive
lunar nights.

JAXA said on the social media platform X that SLIM’s key functions are
still working despite repeated harsh cycles of temperature changes. The
agency said it plans to closely monitor the lander’s deterioration.

READ MORE
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, workers open up the
capsule of the Shenzhou-17 manned spaceship after it lands successfully
at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. China's Shenzhou-17 spacecraft returned
to Earth Tuesday, carrying three astronauts who have completed a
six-month mission aboard the country's orbiting space station. (Lian Zhen/Xinhua via AP)
Chinese astronauts return to Earth after 6 months on space station
This image shows three views of the Horsehead Nebula. Image left,
released in November 2023, features the Horsehead Nebula as seen in
visible light by ESA’s Euclid telescope, which has contributions from
NASA. The second image, middle, shows a view of the Horsehead Nebula in near-infrared light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2013. The
third image, right, features a new view of the Horsehead Nebula from
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument. (NASA via AP)
A horse-shaped nebula gets its close-up in new photos by NASA’s Webb telescope
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, right, and Suni Williams speak to the
media after they arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, Thursday, April
25, 2024, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The two test pilots will launch aboard Boeing's Starliner capsule atop an Atlas rocket to the International
Space Station, scheduled for liftoff on May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Renna) NASA astronauts arrive for Boeing’s first human spaceflight
Scientists are hoping to find clues about the origin of the moon by the comparing mineral compositions of moon rocks and those of Earth.

The message from SLIM came days after NASA restored contact with Voyager
1, the farthest space probe from earth, which had been sending garbled
data back to earth for months.

An U.S. lunar probe developed by a private space company announced
termination of its operation a month after its February landing, while
an Indian moon lander failed to establish communication after touchdown
in 2023.

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