Indian space agency launches Chandrayaan-3 Maha Quiz

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chief S Somnath on Monday gave a special message and urged the people to participate in the Chandrayaan 3 Maha Quiz, on government site MyGov.in and celebrate the historic lunar landing.

The aim of the Chandrayaan 3 Maha Quiz is to celebrate the success of India's lunar mission and encourage students to explore more about Chandrayaan 3. The quiz comprises 10 MCQ-type questions, which can be attempted in five minutes or 300 seconds.

MyGov is a citizen engagement platform launched by the Government of India on 26 July 2014 to promote the active participation of Indian citizens in their country's governance and development.

The Quiz was officially announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he had visited the ISRO facilities to congratulate the scientists on the success of Chandrayaan 3.

"I will request students to participate in Chandrayaan 3 mahaquiz which will help them to explore about country's lunar mission" the Prime Minister had said.

To participate in the Chandrayaan 3 Mahaquiz, the candidates need to create an individual account on MyGov. All participants will receive a participation certificate that can be downloaded, and the winners of the quiz will be rewarded with cash prizes.

The Top performer will be awarded cash prize of ₹ 1,00,000/- (One lakh rupees only), the second-best performer will be awarded with a cash prize of ₹ 75,000/- (Seventy-Five thousand rupees only) and the third best performer will be awarded with a cash prize of ₹ 50,000/- (fifty thousand rupees only).

As of 11 am on September 25, 16,79,412 people have participated in the MahaQuiz.

After a 40-day journey into space, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, 'Vikram', touched down on August 23 at the uncharted lunar South Pole making India the first country to do so.

After transversing over 100 meters on the lunar surface from the Shiv Shakti Point, the touchdown spot of the lander Vikram on the lunar surface, the rover (/topic/rover) Pragyan was safely parked and set into sleep mode on September 2.

According to ISRO efforts to re-establish communication have not been successful yet.

In a post on X on September 22, ISRO said "Efforts have been made to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyan Rover to ascertain their wake-up condition. As of now, no signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue."

Adding to that Union Minister of State for Science and Technology said that efforts to establish communication with the rover and the lander would continue.

"For the last several hours, Team #ISRO making best effort to establish contact with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition after the sunrise on Moon As of now, no signal has been received from them so far" the minister had posted on X.

"..possibly because of prolonged spell of cold weather conditions upto -150 degree C during the just concluded lunar night of 14 Earth days. However, efforts to establish contact shall continue" the minister added.

(ANI)