Chandrayaan 2: ISRO releases first illuminated image of Moon

The Indian Research Space Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday (October 17) released the first image of the surface of the moon captured by the imaging infrared Spectrometer (IIRS) playload on-board Chandrayaan 2.

“See the first illuminated image of the lunar surface acquired by #Chandrayaan2’s IIRS payload. IIRS is designed to measure reflected sunlight from the lunar surface in narrow and contiguous spectral channels,” ISRO tweeted along with the picture.

#ISRO
See the first illuminated image of the lunar surface acquired by #Chandrayaan2’s IIRS payload. IIRS is designed to measure reflected sunlight from the lunar surface in narrow and contiguous spectral channels.

For details visit:https://t.co/C3STg4H79S pic.twitter.com/95N2MpebY4

— ISRO (@isro) October 17, 2019

The image covers part of the lunar farside in the northern hemisphere. A few prominent craters (Sommerfield, Stebbins and Kirkwood) are seen in the image.

The IIRS on-board Chandrayaan-2 is designed to measure the reflected sunlight and emitted part of Moonlight from the lunar surface in narrow and contiguous spectral channels (bands) ranging from ~800 – 5000 nanometre (0.8-5.0 micrometre (um)), ISRO said in a statement.