The shooting-down of nine suns by Yi, a famous archer, was highly praised by people on earth. Yi then had more disciples longing to learn archery including the evil Peng Meng.

Yi one day received an immortality elixir and asked his wife to keep it. Chang'e hid the elixir in a box, which was seen by Peng who forced Chang'e to hand over the pill when Yi went out for hunting.

Threatened by Peng and rather than hand the elixir over, Chang'e chose to swallow the elixir and found herself starting to float toward the sky. She kept on floating until she landed on the moon where she became a goddess, accompanied by a jade rabbit.

Yi's loss of his wife made him immensely sad, but he noticed that the moon was especially bright and clear, and began to worship his beloved wife on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month each year when the moon is at its fullest and brightest.

The legend has been depicted and adapted in many old Chinese stories, demonstrating a long-standing fascination with the moon in Chinese imagination.

Chief scientist: China's lunar orbiter project costs only 1 bln yuan
China's milestone lunar orbiter project only costs 1 to 1.4 billion yuan (about 133 to 187 million U.S. dollars), the same amount as the money used to construct 2 km of subway in Beijing, said Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of the lunar exploration program.

Ouyang said the amount is not an astronomical number for China's economy and will boost the development of national science and technology instead.

"It will generate many new scientific subjects and train a group of talents in aerospace field," he said.

China launched its first lunar probe on Wednesday, marking a new milestone in the country's space exploration history.

The circumlunar satellite Chang'e-1 blasted off on a Long March 3A carrier rocket at 6:05 p.m. from the No. 3 launching tower in the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan Province.