India’s accomplishments in space are getting more impressive

Enlarge / A view of India's Vikram lander taken Wednesday from the Pragyan rover. (credit: ISRO)

It's been more than a week since India's Chandrayaan 3 mission landed on the Moon, and it's a good time to assess where the world's most populous nation stands relative to other global other space powers.

The successful arrival of the Chandrayaan 3 mission's Vikram lander on the Moon made India the first country besides China to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface since 1976, following a series of failed landings by private organizations and India itself four years ago. And it made India just the fourth nation overall to achieve this feat.

Since the landing of Chandrayaan 3 on August 23, India has released some early findings from the lander and its mobile rover, named Pragyan, along with photos of the vehicles exploring the Moon's alien charcoal-color landscape.