Chang’e 5 returns with first fresh rock samples from the moon
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Sci & Tech
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China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission returned to Earth carrying around 2 kilograms of the first fresh rock samples from the moon in 44 years.
The spacecraft recently landed in Siziwang Banner, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Key takeaways
The probe, named after the ancient Chinese goddess of the moon, first took off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan on November 24th.
Two of the Chang’e 5’s four modules landed on the moon on 1st December and collected about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of samples by scooping them from the surface and drilling 2 meters into the moon’s crust.
The samples were deposited in a sealed container that was carried back to the return module by an ascent vehicle.
The retrieved re-entry capsule of Chang’e-5 will be airlifted to Beijing, where the capsule will be opened and the samples will be ready for analysis.
With this, China became the third country after the United States and the Soviet Union, to collect lunar samples.
These are also the first samples to be collected by any country after Russia in 1976.
Do you know?
The samples were retrieved from a previously unvisited area of the moon.
The latest samples come from a part of the moon known as the Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms, near a site called the Mons Rumker that was believed to have been volcanic in ancient times.
Mons Rumker, never sampled before, is geologically younger than the sampling areas of the U.S. and the Soviet missions.
