The Chinese space probe lands on the moon to carry rocks and debris

The Chang e 5 probe “landed successfully” at the designated location around 11pm Tuesday in China (3pm in Lisbon), according to the state agency.

The same source has posted images of the barren ground at the landing site, where the shadow of the spacecraft can be seen.

The module was launched on November 24 from the tropical island of Hainan, in the far south of the country.

It is the latest feat of the Chinese space program, which sent its first astronaut to space in 2003 and which has a spacecraft en route to Mars. The program ultimately aims to place a human on the moon.

Plans say the spacecraft will take about two days to pierce the lunar surface and collect two kilograms of rocks and debris. The sample will be placed in orbit and transferred to a capsule that will return to Earth, landing on pastures in the Inner Mongolia region in the middle of this month.

If successful, it will be the first time scientists have obtained new moon rock samples since a Soviet probe landed on the moon in the 1970s.

The samples are expected to be made available to scientists from other countries, although it is unclear how much access the US agency NASA will have, given the tight restrictions imposed by the US government on space cooperation with China.

From the rocks and debris, scientists hope to learn more about the moon, including its precise age, as well as increase knowledge of other celestial bodies in our solar system.

Sampling, including asteroids, is at the heart of many space programs, and the dominance of Chinese technology once again places the country among the leading nations in space operations.