Beijing
\nChina\u2019s unmanned Chang\u2019e 6 spacecraft has successfully landed on the Moon in a landmark mission to collect soil and rock samples from the far side of Earth\u2019s natural satellite, the China National Space Administration has announced. The probe landed in a pre-selected area in the northeastern part of the South Pole-Aitken basin at 6:23am Beijing time on Sunday.
\nThe lander is expected to go through initial checks and then start gathering samples from the lunar surface using its robotic arm. If successfully returned, it would provide scientists with the first samples from the Moon\u2019s little-explored dark hemisphere, which always faces away from the Earth.
\nThe mission is expected to last around 53 days, the Chinese space agency said in a statement. It also shared stunning footage filmed by the spacecraft during the final moments of landing.
\nThe probe, which was launched on May 3, is the sixth in the Chang\u2019e Project \u2013 the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program \u2013 and the second intended for bringing back samples. Its predecessor, Chang\u2019e 5, brought back rocks from the Moon\u2019s near side in 2020, which led to surprising findings about the celestial body as the samples turned out to be much younger than those retrieved by the US Apollo and Soviet Luna missions 50 years ago.
\nScientists say the samples gathered by the Chinese probe could lead to important discoveries about the Moon\u2019s history and evolution, especially as its two hemispheres greatly differ from each other, at least on the surface. For instance, the near side is covered in volcanic seas, which are rare on the far side for reasons that remain unknown.
\n\u201cFirst-hand, direct samples from the Moon\u2019s far side are essential to giving us a deeper understanding of the characteristics and differences of the two sides of the Moon, and to revealing the secrets of the Moon,\u201d Zeng Xingguo, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua upon the launch of Chang\u2019e 6 last month.<\/p>\n
Quentin Parker, an astrophysicist from the University of Hong Kong, noted that the specifics of the landing location could also provide additional clues into the Moon\u2019s history.
\n\u201cSamples from the South Pole-Aitken basin may also contain ancient materials ejected from deep within the mantle by the enormous impact that created the basin itself, which may tell us about the state of the Moon when it was first formed around 4.5 billion years ago,\u201d he told the South China Morning Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beijing China\u2019s unmanned Chang\u2019e 6 spacecraft has successfully landed on the Moon in a landmark mission to collect soil and rock samples from the far side of Earth\u2019s natural satellite, the China National Space Administration has announced. The probe landed in a pre-selected area in the northeastern part of the South Pole-Aitken basin at 6:23am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-410453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n