China’s Chang’e-5 spacecraft brought back the country’s first lunar rocks in December 2020. The samples are the first brought back to Earth since NASA’s Apollo and the Soviet Union’s Luna missions more than 40 years ago. With that long period of time, the arrival of these rare specimens motivated many lunar experts in China to conduct research studies on and about the samples.
For reference, the Chang’e-5 recovered basalt. Basalt is a loose volcanic material from the vast lava plain in Moon’s northern region. Some of the collected specimens were given by the China National Space Administration to 31 scientific projects that applied for them. This could be the cause of approximately half a dozen papers published in the past six months regarding the lunar rock samples. Most of these studies were presented at the Lunar And Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas.
The material collected by the spacecraft confirmed that the Moon was still active a billion years later than the samples from the Apollo mission suggested. While an established timeline as to the lunar volcanic activity is known, the reason behind the activity remains a mystery.
Image credit: NASA