[Rockhounds] A Chinese lunar probe returns to Earth with the world’s first samples from the far side of the moon

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

China’s Chang’e 6 probe
<https://apnews.com/article/china-lunar-probe-sample-return-space-def5b9e054fbc3a681952d3c7ad002fe>
returned
on Earth with rock and soil samples from the little-explored far side of
the moon in a global first.

The probe landed in the Inner Mongolian region in northern China on Tuesday
afternoon.

“I now declare that the Chang’e 6 Lunar Exploration Mission achieved
complete success,” Zhang Kejian, Director of the China National Space
Administration, said in a televised news conference after the landing.

Chinese scientists anticipate the returned samples will include 2.5
million-year-old volcanic rock and other material that scientists hope will
answer questions about geographic differences on the moon’s two sides.

The near side is what is seen from Earth, and the far side faces outer
space. The far side is also known to have mountains and impact craters,
contrasting with the relatively flat expanses visible on the near side.

The probe had landed in the moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin, an impact
crater created more than 4 billion years ago. The samples scientists are
expecting will likely come from different layers of the basin, which will
bear traces of the different geological events across its long chronology,
such as when the moon was younger and had an active inside that could
produce volcanic rock.

https://apnews.com/article/china-far-side-of-moon-probe-samples-c2dd59505402c07f9382bbca14eed4cf