Why Chandrayaan-3 landed near the moon's south pole — and why everyone else wants to get there too

This view of the Moon's cratered South Pole was seen by NASA's Clementine spacecraft in 1996.

India's Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully landed near the moon's south pole on Wednesday (Aug. 23). The Indian Space Research Organization (IRSO) mission not only made history because it saw the nation become the fourth to successfully land on the moon — after the Soviet Union, the U.S. and China — but also because it named India the first to land at the southern lunar pole. 

The lander's arrival was marked on the ISRO Twitter account with words from Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar surface: "I reached my destination, and you too!'