China says lunar shots are real
China has dismissed internet gossip that its first photo of the moon taken from a lunar orbiter might have been plagiarised from Nasa, local media said yesterday.
The country launched its first lunar probe, the Chang'e 1, in October and released a photo featuring a patch of grey moon surface splotched with craters last week, hailing the mission a "complete success".
But some Chinese internet users have questioned the photo's originality after comparing it with an almost identical lunar image from Nasa in 2005. "There is absolutely no forgery," Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for the lunar probe, told the Beijing News.
