Email
A Chinese spacecraft has landed on the moon in the first "soft landing" since 1976.
The event, broadcast live on Chinese TV, means the country has joined the US and the former Soviet Union in managing to accomplish such a feat.
The Chang'e 3, named after a lunar goddess in traditional Chinese mythology, is carrying the solar-powered Yutu, or Jade Rabbit rover, which will dig and conduct geological surveys. The mission is expected to last three months.
At 9:14 pm local time (1314 GMT), the official Xinhua news service reported that the spacecraft had touched down in the Sinus Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows, at 9:12 p.m. after hovering over the surface for several minutes seeking an appropriate place to land.
A soft landing does not damage the craft and the equipment it carries. In 2007, China put another lunar probe in orbit around the moon, which then executed a controlled crash on to its surface.
The rover will be manipulated by Chinese control centres with support from a network of tracking and transmission stations operated by the European Space Agency.
In China's most recent manned space mission in June, three astronauts spent 15 days in orbit and docked with an experimental space laboratory, part of Beijing's quest to build a working space station by 2020.
;