Search engine giant Google on Thursday celebrated India’s success in its third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3 with a special animated doodle. India scripted history on Wednesday with its touchdown on the lunar south pole, making it the first nation to land on the uncharted surface. 

With this achievement, India was propelled into an exclusive club of four, becoming the fourth country after the US, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon.

Lauding this historic feat, the Internet behemoth has come up with a doodle “celebrating the first landing on the moon’s south pole!”.

The graphically dynamic doodle depicts letters of ‘GOOGLE’ floating in outer space amid twinkling stars, with an animated ‘moon’ forming the second ‘O’ in the sequence. It also shows a spacecraft making a soft landing on the moon’s south pole.

“Today’s doodle celebrates the first-ever landing on the moon’s south pole! The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota Range, Andhra Pradesh, India on July 14, 2023 and successfully touched down near the lunar south pole region on August 23, 2023,” read the note on Thursday’s Google Doodle.

“Moon landings are no easy feat. Previously, only the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union have completed soft landings on the moon — but no country has made it to the southern pole region before now,” it added.

In an epic moment for India as it joined the elite club in the space sector, the nation on Wednesday erupted in celebrations to hail the country’s historic achievement.

Comprising the lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan), the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the lunar south pole at 6.04 pm.

“The moon’s south pole has been an area of heightened interest for space explorers as they suspected the existence of ice deposits located inside permanently shadowed craters. Chandrayaan-3 has now confirmed this prediction to be true! This ice offers the potential of critical resources for future astronauts such as air, water, and even hydrogen rocket fuel,” added the Google note with the doodle.