According to reports CHINA has launched an ambitious plan to build a powerful radar on the moon in order to monitor Earth in more detail than has ever been done before. China's ambition in cementing itself as a major player in space exploration has ramped up over the last few years, and the current project in the pipeline is perhaps its most ambitious. A funding for the project began earlier this year by a group of Chinese scientists and has already garnered 16 million yuan (£1.8m) in funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The facility on our natural satellite would be used for research and defence monitoring and provide the clearest images yet of Earth. The base could even have living facilities and a powerful radar antenna that would be at least 50 metres tall. Powerful microwaves emitted from the radar could penetrate the Earth's surface, allowing scientists to look under the sea and even underground, which could help to predict earthquakes. However,