A spacecraft has landed on the far side of the moon for the first time, China's National Space Administration announced Thursday.
"This space mission shows that China has reached the advanced world-class level in deep space exploration," Zhu Menghua, a professor at the Macau University of Science and Technology who has worked closely with China's space administration, told The New York Times. "We Chinese people have done something that the Americans have not dared try."
WIth n direct way to communicate with the spacecraft from the moon, China put a relay satellite in orbit around the moon in May.
On Dec. 8, the spacecradt lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province and entered the moon's orbit four days later, according to Chinese state media.
"Since the far side of the moon is shielded from electromagnetic interference from the Earth, it's an ideal place to research the space environment and solar bursts, and the probe can 'listen' to the deeper reaches of the cosmos," Tongjie Liu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center for the China National Space Administration, told CNN.