A Moon rover which has spent the last three years investigating unknown areas of the Moon has beamed back a never before seen view of the Earth’s lunar cousin.
The incredible image was released by Ourspace, part of the Chinese National Space Administration.
The beautiful panoramic shot shows the recent journey taken by the rover, known as Yutu 2, on the hidden hemisphere of the lunar surface.
The 310lbs solar-powered rover landed atop of the Chang'e 4 lander in January 2019.
Its powerful cameras recently detected a “mystery hut” - which transpired to be a rabbit-shaped rock- so went to investigate.
When it looked back its tracks were clearly shown in the dust on the surface.
A diary entry by the Yutu 2 team said: “On the moonlit night, the scientists expressed their desire to explore the "cornucopia".
“ This task seems simple, and the image shows that the road is smooth. However, after the terrain products are actually generated, the drivers still scratch their heads.
“An insurmountable obstacle area lights up the red light for this road, although the range is not large, but it cuts off the way of direct detection.
“However, this is not difficult for the experienced Yutu drivers.
“It started smoothly, turned perfectly, stopped in time, and the detection was successful.
"Soon Yutu completed the set detection task and returned safely. The pilots applauded each other and looked forward to the valuable scientific data brought back by the probe.”
The Earth only sees one side of the Moon with all six of Nasa’s manned Apollo missions landing on the near side.
The far side, sometimes wrongly called the dark side, remained a mystery until the Chinese rover successfully landed and started investigations.
Yutu 2 and the Chang'e 4 lander have both far exceeded their original lifetimes of around three months and one year respectively.
Sara Russell, at the Natural History Museum in London, previously said: “The exploration of the far side is really in its infancy.
“It’s like this whole new world to explore. We really have a lot to find out about the far side of the Moon.
“It’s really exciting.”
It comes as it was announced Artemis 1, the first in NASA's new generation of Moon missions, has been delayed until May, possibly June.
It was due to lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April but has been put back until the space agency has more data from a full rehearsal.
Artemis 1 will take an uncrewed mission around the Moon and back before future missions land on the lunar surface.
