This may be a dumb question but I’m a bit of a dunce when it comes to sciency stuff. I am sure Astrochuck will know the answer!!!!
As the Chinese craft has landed on the dark side of the moon and you can’t get signals back to Earth from there, how are they sending pictures back ?. My best guess is that they shoot them off to an orbiter or something which sends them Earthwards when in position to do so. Probably way off and more complicated that it is in real lI’ve. If anyone knows please enlighten ?
You have guessed correctly. They put a satellite into orbit around the moon, and it relays signals back to mother Earth.
From the NYT article:
"To overcome the challenge of communicating from the moon’s far side, China had previously launched a satellite called Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge. It now orbits beyond the moon to act as a relay for transmissions to and from the mission control center on the northwestern outskirts of Beijing."
Thanks for that. It was giving me a headache trying to get my head around it.