China moon rover bids adieu(2)

Her efforts paid off right from the start. About 655,000 Chinese Internet users began following the account Lunar Rover Yutu (yueqiuche yutu) when it appeared on Sina Weibo on Dec 1, the day after China launched a rocket to send Yutu to the moon.

In comparison, the nation's leading newspaper on space affairs, China Space News, has about 150,000 fans on Sina Weibo and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a major space technology contractor, has about 10,000 on the same platform.

So far, through almost 300 posts, Zong has updated people on Yutu's journey, offered images, explained space science in a layman's language and shared setbacks.

The account has even reached out to Yutu's "masters", which is a title the online persona uses to describe space scientists working on China's lunar projects.

"It is a sweetheart for all of us," Ye Peijian, a top scientist with the Chang'e-3 program, the country's lunar probe mission, tells Xinhua News Agency.

"We never thought of spreading scientific knowledge in this manner," he says.

"It is meaningful to share important aerospace news in a light-hearted way and to make people care."