"Lunokhod-2" or 37 years of oblivion

A Canadian scientist from the University of Western Ontario discovered the Soviet Lunokhod-2 missing 37 years ago in pictures of the Moon. The exact location of the lunar rover and its 37-kilometer trail was discovered while studying new NASA images and maps of the Moon.

A bit of history

"Lunokhod-2" - the second of a series of Soviet lunar remote-controlled self-propelled planetary rover "Lunokhod". It was designed to study the mechanical properties of the lunar surface, photographing and telescoping the moon, conducting experiments with a ground-based laser rangefinder, observing solar radiation, and other studies. Constructively, Lunokhod-2 was not much different from its predecessor Lunokhod-1, the mass of Lunokhod-2 was 836 kg. Lunokhod-2 was delivered to the moon on January 16, 1973 by the automatic station Luna-21. During the four months of work, Lunokhod-2 traveled 37 kilometers and transmitted 86 panoramas and more than 80 thousand images of the lunar surface to the Earth. Officially, the machine was discontinued on June 4, 1973.