The small Japanese spacecraft SLIM landed on the moon last Saturday at a distance of about 55 meters from where it aimed to land, that is, with a high degree of precision, the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) announced today.

The goal of landing this craft within a radius of 100 meters from the target point, while in general landings are done at a distance of kilometers from it, was therefore achieved.

Jaxa also today released the first images from this moon landing, the first of Japan’s making it the fifth country in the world to successfully land on Earth’s natural satellite after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

However, the Japanese achievement was accompanied by a serious problem: the SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) developed a problem with its solar panels, which forced Jaxa to cut its power less than three hours after landing in order to conserve batteries with prospect of possibly putting it back into operation later.

Jaxa believes it is possible that SLIM’s solar panels will start working again when the angle at which the sun’s rays strike the landing site has changed.

SLIM landed inside a small crater less than 300 meters in diameter, called Sioli, and was able to successfully land its two small rovers, which will analyze rocks from the Moon’s inner structure (the lunar mantle). which is still largely unknown.