海角大神

To see hundreds upon hundreds of true color, high definition photos of the moon's surface, just ask China.

The typically secretive China National Space Administration recently made available to the public for download.

Though the images were captured back in December 2013 by cameras on the Chang鈥檈-3 lander and Yutu rover, they demonstrate a still-impressive achievement: China's mission to the moon's surface was the first successful soft landing in 37 years, and China was only the third country to achieve it, after Russia and the United States.

While the publicity for the Chang鈥檈-3 lander mission of 2013 may appear random, it comes only a couple of weeks after the People's Republic confirmed plans to land on the far side of the moon in 2018, using a probe called聽Chang鈥檈-4.聽

If successful, China would be the first country to do so.

Before that, though, in 2017, the country will launch the Chang'e-5 spacecraft, which (if successful) will land on the moon and return soil samples to Earth.

These plans indicate China鈥檚 uniquely lunar ambitions, a departure from previous missions that often replicated the achievements of the US and Russian space programs. For their part, NASA and Roscosmos have turned their focus on Mars and the International Space Station (where Chinese astronauts are not welcome).

But the space race has also gone private. The聽Google Lunar XPRIZE has聽numerous private companies competing to design spacecraft to soft-land on the moon in the next few years.聽Moon Express, a San Francisco-based competitor, for their spacecraft on Sept. 30, 2017.

China's focus on the moon has so far yielded a of the lunar surface's complexity, and Chang鈥檈-3 has demonstrated what modern technology is required for a soft-landing and rover exploration, Tech Crunch reports.聽

To see the now-defunct probe in action,聽create a user account on China鈥檚聽聽website to download its photos. Also, the Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla curated the Chinese database and has posted China鈥檚 lunar images on the聽.