Rare lunar samples brought by China’s mission offer groundbreaking geological insights

We've achieved remarkable feats in space travel over the decades. Landing on the Moon was once a dream, but now even Mars is within reach. However, scientists remain curious about the Moon's lesser-known far side. Why does it look different from the side visible from Earth? This mystery led to a recent successful mission by China's lunar lander, which brought back rare samples from the Moon's far side on June 25, according to CGTN.

China's lunar probe made a historic soft landing near the Moon's South Pole, making China the only nation to land twice on the Moon's far side. The first soft landing was achieved by Chang'e-4 in 2019, reported the South China Morning Post. In 2020, Chang'e-5 brought back samples from the near side. This time, the lunar mission retrieved rare moon rocks from the scarcely explored far side, returning to Earth and landing in the Siziwang Banner grasslands of Inner Mongolia. The re-entry was broadcast live by CCTV Video News Agency on YouTube.

This mission was a collaboration between China's Chang'e-6 and the European Space Agency (ESA). China's lunar probe carried ESA's Negative Ions at the Lunar Surface (NILS) instrument to detect negative ions on the far side. "This was ESA's first activity on the surface of the Moon, a world-first scientific, and the first lunar cooperation with China. We have collected an amount and quality of data far beyond our expectations," said Neil Melville, ESA's technical officer, in a statement. "These observations on the Moon will help us better understand the surface environment and act as a pathfinder to explore negative ion populations in other airless bodies in the Solar System, from planets to asteroids and other moons," NILS principal investigator Martin Wieser stated. 

Launched on May 3, the Chinese lunar probe, which included an orbiter, returner, lander, and ascender, landed on the Moon in early June. After a few days of sending images of the far side and collecting samples, the probe's orbiter-returner combination circled the lunar orbit for 13 days. When conditions were favorable, the returner delivered the collected fragments to Earth. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced the mission a success after the probe achieved its goal and landed in the designated region.

Now that the rare Moon rocks are available, it is to be analyzed by experts. Hoping to offer insights about "what geologic activity is responsible for the differences between the two sides," these samples are expected to have some "impact melts," according to Zongyu Yue, a geologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The geologist believes these fragments must have been the outcome of cosmic bodies crashing onto the Moon, offering "crucial constraints on the early impact flux of the moon." He added, "Once this information is obtained, it will not only help clarify the role of early lunar meteorite impacts on the Moon's evolution but [will] also be of great significance in analyzing the early impact history of the inner solar system."