Why there's a rush to explore the Moon's enigmatic South Pole

It's a place where no human-made object has trundled before. Last week, however, the diminutive Pragyaan rover slid down a ramp from its mothership, India's Vikram lander, and began exploring the region around the Moon's South Pole.

The uncrewed spacecraft is something of a pioneer – the first to make a soft-landing in the frigid, crater-strewn lunar polar landscape. Whereas the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s primarily set down near the Moon's equator, the lander from India's Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully touched down about 370 miles (600km) from the lunar south pole, closer than any spacecraft has been to this location.

It arrived hot on the heels of a failed Russian attempt two days earlier, the Luna-25 spacecraft, which span out of control and crashed. India's mission is the start of a rush of activity at this enigmatic part of the lunar surface that will ultimately see humans set foot there later this decade.

"It's just incredible that this is happening," says Simeon Barber, a planetary scientist at The Open University in the UK.