Chinese rover lands on moon

A space module carrying China's first lunar rover landed on the moon yesterday, state television said, the first soft landing on the moon in nearly four decades and a major step for Beijing's ambitious space programme.
Scientists burst into applause as a computer generated image representing the spacecraft was seen landing on the moon's surface via screens at a Beijing control centre, state broadcaster CCTV showed, 12 days after Chang'e-3 blasted off on a Long March-3B carrier rocket.
China is set to become just the third country to carry out a moon rover mission, following the United States and former Soviet Union, which made the last soft landing on the moon 37 years ago.
China plans to establish a permanent space station by 2020 and eventually send a human to the moon.
A rover is set to be released from the landing craft in "a few hours", according to a post on Chang'e's Weibo page late yesterday. It will spend about three months exploring the moon's surface and looking for natural resources.