After 110 hours of flight, the Chinese probe manages to reach the lunar orbit

The Chinese probe reached the dark side of the moon and entered a fixed orbit around the moon. The journey lasted about 110 hours, until Chang-4 reached an orbit of more than 80 km at above the surface.

According to the Daily Mail website, the probe is expected to land early January on the dark side of the moon, but the country's secret space agency has yet to announce a specific date.

The Chang-4 – the crater of the volcano Von Karman at the South Pole, the largest of all the solar system – measures 24 000 km.

The spacecraft took off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan, southwestern China, at 6:30 GMT on December 7, on a Long 3B rocket.

After 27 days of space travel, he should land on the moon and explore the huge fission of the moon could shed light on its history and geology by collecting unpublished rocks. The researchers hope that the immense depth of the crater will allow them to study the moon's cover, the layer under the moon.