History and Culture of Hare/Rabbit on the Moon (Jade Rabbit)
Home
People in Asian countries have long believed that there is a hare/rabbit on the Moon. The rabbit on the Moon is called "jade rabbit” or “yutu (玉兎).” Recently, yu-zu was used as the name of a lunar rover (exploration vehicle) launched by China. The Moon rabbit pounding rice cakes is also well known in Japan.
Why is hare/rabbit thought to exist on the Moon? This site examines the origin and culture of the Moon rabbit (jade rabbit).
Paper
About history of the Moon rabbit
Shoji, D. (2021) "When and how did Japanese jade rabbit begin to pound rice cake?" Geology and Culture vol. 4 (2), 42-56. (PDF text in Japanese, abstract in English)
Note
About machine learning and the Moon rabbit
Shoji, D. (2022) "Rabbit, toad, and the Moon: Can machine categorize them into one class?" arXiv:2203.16163. (PDF)
Shoji, D. (2017) "What does a neural network recognize in the moon?" arXiv:1708.05636. (PDF)