China has looked at the first lunar samples brought back to Earth in more than 45 years.
The lunar regiment was assembled by the country’s Chang’e 5 mission which returned in December with 3.8 pounds of soil and rocks from our natural satellite.
The images show the samples as small as dust particles up to larger lumps, along with samples inside a crystal vessel on display at the National Museum of China.
The vessel is designed as a ritual Chinese wine vessel, or ‘zun,’ and holds the moon’s dust in a sacred area representing both the moon and Chang’5 re-entry capsule. .
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China has looked at the first lunar samples returned to Earth in more than 45 years
China’s lunar mission was the first to return with samples from the Soviet Union’s Lunar 24 robotic mission in 1976 and is now the 21st mission to land on the lunar surface.
The Chang’e-5 took off at the rocket launch of Long March-5 in November from the Wenchang launch site in Hainan province for what is a major breakthrough in the country’s space program.
The probe focused on a 4,265-foot-high volcanic center called Mons Rumker on a side near the moon, an area called Oceanus Procellarum, which is Latin for Ocean of Storms.
The area is ‘very unusual and nowhere near where we landed before,’ said James Head, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University, after the November announcement.
The lunar regiment was assembled by the country’s Chang’e 5 mission which returned in December with 3.8 pounds of soil and rocks from our natural satellite
‘It raises some very important questions, because these samples certainly tell us how young volcanic activity on the moon was, which is an indication of its recent activity, a pressing issue in evolution. of the planets, ‘he said.
The images show the samples as small as dust particles up to larger lumps, along with samples inside a crystal vessel.
The probe returned Dec. 17 with lunar rocks and soil safely stored inside and China has provided the first official look at the cosmic wonders.
The age of rocks and soil should help scientists fill a gap in knowledge about the lunar history between about a billion and three billion years ago, Brad Jolliff, director of the McDonnell Center for Space Sciences at Washington University in the city US continent. of St. Louis, he said in an e-mail.
They can also provide advertisements for access to economically useful resources on the moon such as concentrated hydrogen and oxygen, Jolliff said.
‘Those samples will be investment money!’ Jolliff said when the probe returned in December.
‘My hat is off to our Chinese colleagues for taking on a very difficult mission; the science that comes from the analysis of the samples returned will be a legacy that will last for many, many years, and hopefully involve an international community of scientists. ‘
The age of the rocks and soil should help scientists fill a gap in knowledge about the history of the moon between about a billion and three billion years ago.
The probe focused on a 4,265-foot-high volcanic center called Mons Rumker on a side near the moon, an area called Oceanus Procellarum, which is Latin for Ocean of Storms
The image shared with China shows samples of fine-grained material, along with lumps of basalt glass formed on the surface by lunar volcanism, according to the image’s description.
Some of the soil collected in 2020 will be on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing, CGTN shared in news.
The 38.44-centimeter-tall complex vessel is the average distance between Earth and the Moon, which is 384,400 kilometers.
It is also 22.89 centimeters wide, symbolizing the duration of the Chang’e-5 mission from launch to landing, 22.89 days.
‘Eighty percent of the samples will be used for the scientific research,’ Pei Zhaoyu, deputy chief designer of CNSA’s China Lunar Study Program Stage-3, said at a news conference on January 18th. The other 20 percent would be permanently saved storage.