As India scripted history with its spacecraft Chandrayaan-3's touchdown on the lunar south pole, search engine giant Google celebrated it with a special animated doodle. With this achievement, India was propelled into an exclusive club of four, becoming the fourth country after the US, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon. Lauding this historic feat, the Internet behemoth has come up with a doodle "celebrating the first landing on the moon's south pole!".
The graphically dynamic doodle depicts letters of 'GOOGLE' floating in outer space amid twinkling stars, with an animated 'moon' forming the second 'O' in the sequence. Additionally, it displayed a spacecraft touching down gently on the south pole of the moon.
Watch Google doodle here
How Google celebrated India's success?
"Today’s doodle celebrates the first-ever landing on the moon’s south pole! The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota Range, Andhra Pradesh, India on July 14, 2023, and successfully touched down near the lunar south pole region on August 23, 2023," read the note on Google Doodle. "Moon landings are no easy feat. Previously, only the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union have completed soft landings on the moon — but no country has made it to the southern pole region before now," it added.
India's lunar mission
It should be mentioned here that India’s Moon mission Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the lunar south pole at 6:04 pm on Wednesday, August 23. In a big boost to India's space prowess, the Lander Module comprising the lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan), made the soft landing near the south polar region of the Moon, less than a week after a similar Russian lander crashed. The Rs 600 crore Chandrayaan-3 mission was launched on July 14 onboard Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM-3) rocket, for a 41-day voyage to reach near the lunar south pole.
(With PTI inputs)
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