Lunar far side area as imaged from the Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC) onboard Chandrayaan-3 on August 19, 2023

Ahead of the scheduled landing of the Chandrayaan-3 Lander on the moon surface on August 23, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Monday released images of the far side of the lunar surface.

The far side is also known as the dark side area of the moon as it is always hidden from the earth. The images were captured on August 19 by the Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC) which is onboard the Lander.

“Here are the images of Lunar far side area captured by the Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC). This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area — without boulders or deep trenches — during the descent is developed by ISRO at SAC,” ISRO posted on social media platform X.

Russia’s first lunar mission in decades, Luna-25, which crashed on the moon surface on August 20 had also sent images of the far side of the moon.

ISRO has already released three videos of the moon captured by its third moon mission Chandrayaan-3. One of them was taken by the Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC) on August 15, 2023.

There was another one taken by the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1 just after the separation of the Lander Module from the Propulsion Module on August 17. Similarly, on August 6, it shared its first video of the moon as viewed by Chandrayaan-3 during Lunar Orbit Insertion on August 5.