Vikram's lander touched down on August 23, making India the only country to land in the lunar South Polar region. The touchdown spot was later named Shiv Shakti point.

Chandrayaan-3 has accomplished two of its three objectives - soft landing and rover roving on the lunar surface - and the third - in-situ scientific experiments - is underway, ISRO said Saturday.

ISRO scientist BHM Darukesha said the temperature recorded was surprisingly higher than what was expected. "We believed the temperature could be somewhere around 20-30 degrees centigrade on the surface but it is 70 degrees," he told PTI, referring to the graph.

ChaSTE, a key instrument mounted on the Vikram Lander, is equipped with 10 high-precision thermal sensors, which will dig into the moon's topsoil to study temperature variations. It is the first-ever experiment to study the thermophysical properties of the first 10 cm of the lunar surface.

The Moon's surface undergoes substantial temperature variations during the lunar day and night. The minimum temperatures dip below 100 degrees Celsius around lunar midnight while the maximum goes beyond 100 degrees around noon.

The porous lunar topsoil, about 5-20 meters thick, is expected to be an excellent insulator, due to the absence of air, a very significant temperature difference is expected between the top surface and the interior of the regolith.

Vikram's lander touched down on August 23, making India the only country to land in the lunar South Polar region. The touchdown spot was later named Shiv Shakti point.

Chandrayaan-3 has accomplished two of its three objectives - soft landing and rover roving on the lunar surface - and the third - in-situ scientific experiments - is underway, ISRO said Saturday.

ISRO scientist BHM Darukesha said the temperature recorded was surprisingly higher than what was expected. "We believed the temperature could be somewhere around 20-30 degrees centigrade on the surface but it is 70 degrees," he told PTI, referring to the graph.

ChaSTE, a key instrument mounted on the Vikram Lander, is equipped with 10 high-precision thermal sensors, which will dig into the moon's topsoil to study temperature variations. It is the first-ever experiment to study the thermophysical properties of the first 10 cm of the lunar surface.

The Moon's surface undergoes substantial temperature variations during the lunar day and night. The minimum temperatures dip below 100 degrees Celsius around lunar midnight while the maximum goes beyond 100 degrees around noon.

The porous lunar topsoil, about 5-20 meters thick, is expected to be an excellent insulator, due to the absence of air, a very significant temperature difference is expected between the top surface and the interior of the regolith.