Galaxy of Kenshine

The Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (CIXS), one of the 11 payloads onboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, jointly developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation and the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, has successfully detected the first X-ray signature from the Moon, ISRO announced on Friday.

"This is the first step in its mission to reveal the origin and evolution of the Moon by mapping its surface composition", Bangalore-headquartered ISRO said in a statement.

Chandrayaan-1 was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on October 22 last year and it entered the lunar orbit on November eight.

In orbit around the Moon, Chandrayaan-1 CIXS detected the X-ray signal from a region near the Apollo landing sites on December 12 last year.

"The solar flare that caused the X-ray fluorescence was exceedingly weak, approximately 20 times smaller than the minimum CIXS was designed to detect", ISRO said. "The X-ray camera collected three minutes of data from the Moon just as the flare started and the camera finished its observation".

"The joint development and operationalisation of CIXS in Chandrayaan-1 between ISRO and RAL, the UK, is a major achievement", ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said. "First signatures obtained from CIXS are highly encouraging".