A space rover sent to the moon nearly three years ago by China has garnered media attention after it photographed a distant cube-shaped structure on the horizon. The blurry shape has been described as a “mystery hut”, but that is just a placeholder name and not an official scientific term.
The Yutu 2 robot was traveling across the Von Kármán crater in November this year when it snapped a photo of the strange land formation, located roughly 260 feet (80 meters) away to the north. Yutu 2 sighted the hut 36 lunar days into its mission.
The discovery was first reported by Our Space, a Chinese language media service linked to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Parts of the Yutu 2 mission diary have been translated into English and reported by Space.com. The findings of the exploration have also been closely followed by Finland-based journalist Andrew Jones, a contributing editor for the Planetary Society.
While the shape is currently too far away for scientists to determine its nature and origin, Space.com notes it is probably a large boulder turned up after a meteor strike. The original Our Space reports mention the shape is located at the side of an impact crater. Yutu 2 will spend the next two to three lunar days, which equates to about two to three Earth months, traveling north to get a closer look at the structure. The rover will have to traverse numerous other dangerous craters and slopes to complete the trip.
“Chinese media are very eager to find all sorts of strange things on the moon,” said Professor Philip Stooke, of the Department of Geography and Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at the University of Western Ontario, in an interview with Inside Outer Space.
“We tend to think they are all tightly controlled and just repeat the party line, but there is a ton of stuff spinning every news item into a sensational headline … alien bases, millions of tons of priceless metals or unspecified substances, conspiracies about Western interests in space and everything else.”
Commenters on social media responded to Jones’ updates by joking the photograph was of a lunar McDonalds, or a Starbucks, or even a bus shelter. Even the original Our Space reports made light that it might be a home built by aliens following a crash landing.
The Yutu 2 rover touched down on the moon with the Chang’e 4 lander in January 2019. It is China’s fourth moon mission, and the second to land discovery units of the moon’s surface. The units landed on the far side of the moon, meaning communication has to be bounced off a Chinese satellite in order for Beijing to communicate with the robots.
So far the six-wheeled Yutu 2 has been traveling the moon for more than 1,000 Earth days, journeying more than 840 meters across and around the Von Kármán crater. It has transmitted back 3.6 terabytes of data, leading to some interesting discoveries of gel-like substances found at the bottom of one small crater, according to Stooke.
