ISRO shares picture of Mitra crater named after Sisir Mitra an Indian physicist

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shared a recent picture of the lunar surface imaged by Terrain Mapping Camera-2 (TMC-2) of Chandrayaan-2. The picture was taken on August 23 at an altitude of about 4375 km showing craters such as Jackson, Mach, Korolev and Mitra.

The Mitra crater is named after Prof. Sisir Kumar Mitra, an Indian physicist from Kolkata, India. Lunar craters are usually named after deceased scientists and other explorer and the assignment of these names is regulated by the International Astronomical Union, which India is a part of.

India launched its second lunar mission – Chandrayaan-2 on July 22, 2019 after its first launch attempt had to be aborted due to some technical glitch on July 15, 2019. It was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission consists an orbiter, a rover and a lander to space. If successful, India will become the fourth country to make a soft landing on the moon and first to land on the south polar region of the moon. The lander and rover are supposed to land on September 7, 2019.