From - Sky & Telescope By - David Dikinson, Edited by - Amal Udawatta, The first surface image received from Chandrayaan 3. ISRO In a first for the nation, India’s Chandrayaan 3 soft-landed in the lunar south pole region of the Moon. Russia’s Luna 25 lander crashed, however. Today was a “historic day for India’s space sector,” says India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, on X , formerly known as Twitter. "Congratulations to ISRO for the remarkable success of Chandrayaan 3 lunar mission.” The landing occurred near Manzinus U Crater on the lunar nearside at 12:34 Universal Time (UT) (8:34 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, or EDT) on Wednesday, August 23rd. This makes India the fourth nation to soft-land on the Moon, after the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China. ESA’s European Space Tracking system (ESTRACK) and NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) partnered with ISRO to provide global tracking coverage for Chandrayaan 3. A cheering mission contr