China Accused of Forgery

In October China launched its first lunar orbiter, Chang'e 1, and last week it released a photograph of the moon's surface, as a sign of success of the mission. However, the picture in discussion started a controversy regarding its authenticity, since it is extremely similar to a picture taken by a U.S. orbiter in 2005.

Upon comparing the two photographs, critics have posted on the Chinese-language websites comments that question the origin of this picture, as it describes the exact same spot on the moon's surface as the U.S. photograph.

Chief scientist of the lunar prober, Ouyang Ziyuan, told Beijing News that the picture is not a forgery, that the Chinese image is real and the similarities are merely a result of the fact that the two orbiters have been taking images of the same general region.

After a more careful examination though, it seems that the two pictures present some small differences. In the Chinese photograph in a patch of the surface there can be seen two craters, whereas in the U.S. image there is only one. Ziyuan explained this small detail stating that NASA's orbiter might have been equipped with a camera capable of taking pictures at far smaller resolutions than its Chinese rival, or maybe the crater was created after the first picture was taken.

Also, the Chinese scientists revealed on Sunday a three-dimensional image of the surface of the moon, taken by the Chang'e 1 orbiter, and some other data gathered by the satellite.

China became the third country in the world to ever put a man in space by using its own vehicle in 2003 after the Soviet Union and the United States and in late October 2005 two Chinese astronauts executed a five-day flight on Earth's orbit. Chang'e 1 is only the first probe sent to the moon to study it. The Chang'e 2 lander will follow in the next decade, in the hope that Chang'e 3 will be the first Chinese manned mission to the moon.