Very similar to the famous Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the six-wheeled bot created by a team at Shanghai Aerospace System Engineering Institute is capable of cruising around the Moon at a reported 100 meters per hour, all the while snapping photos and collecting bits of moon rock for analysis and possible sale on eBay.
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And we learn from both that Mr Armstrong's first job on landing on the moon was to grab a rock.
They started off with more than 1, 000 virtual Moon-sized objects made of rock and ice and simulated about 200 million years of planetary evolution.
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Today, though, few people run off to buy a Pink Floyd album after hearing "Dark Side of the Moon" on their local classic rock station.
And the absence of heat coming from the interior means that the moon is an inert lump of rock, bereft of interesting geological processes such as vulcanism.
But there is plenty for the less physically ambitious to do as well, including taking a walk through the Valley of the Moon near sunset (the salt rock formations can be heard popping and crackling with temperature swings), visiting flamingo-dotted salt lakes, swimming near the El Tatio geysers, or stargazing at Explora's own observatory.
The band is Sun Kil Moon and it has remade the songs of alternative rock band Modest Mouse.
Some have even suggested the loose rock regolith on the surface of the moon or Mars as a growing medium, although additional minerals would need to be brought from Earth.
The performance was remarkable for the serious attention to the material, its explicit ties to departed bandmates Keith Moon and John Entwistle, and for the spectacle of a rock opera that actually rocks.
At that point, the imprisoned moon lost what little light it had left: it became a black, shapeless rock.
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