• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

China Is Back On The Far Side Of The Moon – Ready To Collect Its Haul

June 4, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

China has made history on the Moon once more. It successfully landed once again on the far side of the Moon, having been the only nation to have done that before. The new mission, Chang’e 6, is going for another first. It will collect rocks and soil, bringing them back to Earth. If it does so successfully, it will be the first sample collected from the far side.

Advertisement

The Moon is tidally locked to Earth. This means that it takes the same time to rotate on its axis as it takes to go around our planet, so we see only one face: the near side. But there is a whole other face that we have been able to study since space travel became a possibility – and still it was only with Chang’e 4 in 2019 that humanity landed there. And now we might get pieces of it back.

Advertisement

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

The Moon is not all the same everywhere, and samples have revealed some intriguing insights about the history and composition of our satellite. Chang’e 6 landed at 22:23 UTC on June 1 in the Apollo crater, which is 537 kilometers (334 miles) across. This already enormous crater is part of an even bigger site: the South Pole-Aitken Basin, an area of massive interest for understanding the Moon’s past.

The South Pole-Aitken Basin formed around 4 billion years ago when a colossal object slammed into the Moon. That object did not disappear, and researchers believe that it remains buried underneath this region. After all, there is a massive structure under it. But even more important is the fact that the collision threw a portion of the lunar mantle out into the open. If Chang’e 6 were to find mantle rocks and bring them back, it would be revolutionary.

The surface on the far side tends to be more rugged than the near side. Apollo is relatively flat, but Chang’e 6 had to be equipped with some impressive tech to guarantee success. Not an easy task, given how many crash-lands the Moon has seen in the last year alone.

Advertisement

“During the descent, an autonomous visual obstacle avoidance system was used to automatically detect obstacles, with a visible light camera selecting a comparatively safe landing area based on the brightness and darkness of the lunar surface,” a press release on the Chinese National Space Agency website said.

“The combination then hovered about 100 meters [328 feet] above the safe landing area and used a laser 3D scanner to detect obstacles on the lunar surface to select the final landing site before a slow vertical descent. As the combination approached the lunar surface, it shut down the engine and touched down via free fall, protected by a cushioning system.”

Chang’e 6 is equipped with a drill and a scooping device. It will collect about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of sample from up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) below the surface. It is expected to fly off tomorrow, June 4, and all going well it will take 4.5 days to come back to Earth.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Biden nominee for key China export post expects Huawei to remain blacklisted
  2. New Images From Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant Are Causing Big Worries
  3. 100-Year Floods May Be Looming If We Don’t Change Our Ways
  4. Disk Called “Dracula’s Chivito” Has The Largest Collection Of Planet-Making Materials Ever Found

Source Link: China Is Back On The Far Side Of The Moon – Ready To Collect Its Haul

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Did We Accidentally Leave Life On The Moon In 2019 – And Could We Revive It?
  • 1.8 Million Years Ago, Two Extinct Humans Had One Of The Gnarliest Deaths In History
  • “Powerful Image” Of One Of The World’s Rarest Tigers Exposes The Real Danger In Taman Negara
  • Evolution, Domestication, And A Lot Of Very Good Boys: How Wolves Became Dogs
  • Why Do Orcas Have White Spots Near Their Eyes?
  • Tomb Of First King Of Ancient Maya City Discovered In Belize
  • The Real Reason The Tip Of Your Tape Measure Wiggles Like That
  • The “Haunting” Last Message From NASA’s Opportunity Rover, Sent From Inside A Planet-Wide Storm
  • Adorable Video Proves Not All Gorillas Hate The Rain. It Might Even Win One A Mate
  • 5,000-Year-Old Rock Art May Show One Of Ancient Egypt’s First Rulers
  • Alzheimer’s-Linked Protein Levels “20 Times Higher” In Newborn Babies – What Does This Mean?
  • Americans Were Asked If They Thought Civil War Was Coming. The Results Were Unexpected
  • Voyager 1 & 2 Could Be Detected From Almost A Light-Year Away With Our Current Technology
  • Dams Have Nudged Earth’s Poles By Over 1 Meter In The Past 200 Years
  • This Sugar Could Be A Cure For Male Pattern Baldness – And It’s Been In Our Bodies All Along
  • “Cosmic Immigrants”: Daytime Star Seen In 1604 May Be An “Alien Type Ia Supernova”
  • Ancient Meteor Crater Thought To Be World’s Oldest May Be 800 Million Years Younger Than We Realized
  • Celestial Fish And Chips And A Solar Cataclysm Shortlisted For Astronomy Photographer Of The Year
  • Tortoises Have Feelings Too, Or At Least Moods
  • What Would Happen If You Threw A Paper Airplane Out Of The ISS? New Study Finds Out
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version