{"id":11933,"date":"2021-01-01T20:10:59","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T12:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chinese-mission-returned-nearly-4-pounds-of-lunar-samples\/"},"modified":"2021-01-01T20:10:59","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T12:10:59","slug":"chinese-mission-returned-nearly-4-pounds-of-lunar-samples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chinese-mission-returned-nearly-4-pounds-of-lunar-samples\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese mission returned nearly 4 pounds of lunar samples"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Staff members handle the capsule containing lunar samples returned by the Chang\u2019e 5 mission. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chinese officials say they plan to share a portion of the nearly 4 pounds of lunar material returned by the Chang\u2019e 5 mission with other countries, but an allocation for U.S. scientists will hinge on a change in U.S. policy restricting cooperation between NASA and China\u2019s space program.<\/p>\n

The Chang\u2019e 5 sample return capsule landed in China\u2019s Inner Mongolia region Dec. 16, ending a 23-day robotic mission that brought back the first lunar rocks since 1976. The mission made China the third country, after the United States and Russia, to successfully return samples from the Moon.<\/p>\n

Officials from the China National Space Administration, or CNSA, handed over the Chang\u2019e 5 samples to the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Dec. 19 to undergo detailed analyses inside Chinese laboratories.<\/p>\n

Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the Chinese space agency, said in a press conference Dec. 17 that China will make some of the Chang\u2019e 5 samples available to international scientists. Some of the specimens will also be put on public display at the National Museum of China in Beijing, and given to the United Nations, Wu said.<\/p>\n

China will also \u201cshare samples with other countries and scientists around the world in accordance with the relevant international cooperation conventions, as well as multilateral and bilateral cooperation agreements,\u201d Wu said Dec. 17. \u201cWe will soon release guidelines on the management of the lunar samples and data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wu said some of the samples may be given to other countries as \u201cdiplomatic gifts\u201d following the example set by the United States and Russia, which distributed lunar materials gathered by the Apollo and Luna missions.<\/p>\n

Nine missions have returned moon samples to Earth, including NASA\u2019s six Apollo missions with astronauts, and three robotic Luna spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union. NASA\u2019s Apollo missions brought back 842 pounds (382 kilograms) of rocks from the moon.<\/p>\n

The Soviet Union\u2019s Luna 24 mission was the last mission to return rocks from the moon in 1976.<\/p>\n

Asked in the Dec. 17 press conference whether China will share Chang\u2019e 5\u2019s samples with scientists in the United States, Wu said that depends on U.S. policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe possibility of cooperation between us depends on the U.S. government,\u201d Wu said in translated remarks.<\/p>\n

He continued by saying China would like to cooperate with U.S. government agencies, such as NASA, commercial companies, scientists, and engineers on the basis of \u201cequality, mutual benefits, and peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legislative language inserted in appropriations bills since 2011 has largely restricted NASA\u2019s cooperation with the Chinese space program. There have been a few exceptions, such as multilateral meetings and bilateral discussions between NASA and Chinese officials regarding Earth science research.<\/p>\n

The language was first added by former Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) to NASA\u2019s section of a government appropriations bill in 2011, and similar provisions have been part of appropriations bills every year since then.<\/p>\n

Wu called the provision, known as the Wolf Amendment, \u201cunfortunate\u201d in the Dec. 17 press conference.<\/p>\n

NASA said in a statement after Chang\u2019e 5\u2019s launch that it hopes China \u201cshares its data with the global scientific community to enhance our understanding of the moon like our Apollo missions did and the Artemis program will.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Artemis program is NASA\u2019s effort to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.<\/p>\n

Wu said the European Space Agency, Argentina, Namibia, Pakistan, and other countries assisted China in executing the Chang\u2019e 5 mission. ESA provided tracking and communications support, and Argentina hosts a Chinese ground station.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Chang\u2019e 5 sample return capsule landed in China\u2019s Inner Mongolia region Dec. 16. Credit: CNSA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Clive Neal, a planetary geologist at the University of Notre Dame, said an interview before the mission\u2019s launch Nov. 23 that he would be surprised if the Chang\u2019e 5 samples are distributed to the United States, at least initially.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t expect them to come to the U.S. given the souring of relations between China and the U.S. at the political level,\u201d Neal said. \u201cHowever, I think there will be potential collaborations between scientists. The lunar science community is international in nature, and we tend to get along pretty well. So I\u2019m hoping the results will be made available through our science colleagues, even if the samples can\u2019t come out of China.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chang\u2019e 5 mission came after successful landings of Chinese spacecraft on the Moon in 2013 and 2019. The landing in 2019, on the Chang\u2019e 4 mission, was the first soft touchdown of a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon.<\/p>\n

Chang\u2019e 5 landed on the near side of the moon in the Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms, region, east of a volcanic plateau named Mons R\u00fcmker.<\/p>\n

There is evidence that rocks in Chang\u2019e 5\u2019s landing zone are much younger than those returned by the Apollo astronauts. Those specimens are some 3.5 billion years old, created during a period of active volcanism in the first billion years of the moon\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

Lava plains to the east of Mons R\u00fcmker appear to be less battered by asteroid impacts, suggesting rocks there could be less than 2 billion years old. But models of the moon\u2019s evolution suggest its internal heating should have diminished by that time, rendering volcanoes extinct, Neal said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a whole new sampling region,\u201d said Li Chunlai, deputy chief designer of the Chang\u2019e 5 mission. \u201cWe\u2019ve got the fresh new samples for research, which should be of great scientific value in areas including weathering, volcanism, the regional geological background, and evolution fo the Moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the samples will be used for scientific research,\u201d Li said. \u201cWe will conduct long-term and systematic research on lunar samples in the laboratory, including its structure, physical properties, chemical composition, isotopic composition, characteristics of the minerals, and the geological evolution behind the samples.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chang\u2019e 5 was designed to return a bit more material than the 3.8 pounds (1.731 kilograms) of samples it actually brought back to Earth.<\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s robotic lander drilled specimens from within the lunar crust, and a scoop gathered fine-grained material from the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were going to drill a 2-meter-deep (6.6-foot) hole,\u201d said Hu Hao, chief designer of the third phase of China\u2019s lunar exploration program. \u201cHowever, while the lander started drilling there, the radar echograms showed that there were several layers of slates underneath the landing site. So we were unable to go further down when we reached about 1 meter (3.3 feet) deep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chinese officials decided to forego further drilling and not risk spending too much time on the operation before commanding the lander to continue with its next tasks. The landing craft\u2019s time on the Moon\u2019s surface was limited to about two days.<\/p>\n

NASA set aside some of the hundreds of pounds of Apollo lunar samples for analysis using lab technology unavailable 50 years ago. U.S. scientists began analyzing some of the previously-unopened samples in 2019.<\/p>\n

While the Apollo missions returned significantly more material than Chang\u2019e 5, the Chinese mission may have returned clues about a different era in the Moon\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of Apollo and Luna sites selected for sampling were old,\u201d said Brett Denevi, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University\u2019s Applied Physics Laboratory. \u201cAnd of the sites that were on terrain shaped by volcanism, the volcanic eruptions occurred over 3 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is exciting about the Chang\u2019e 5 sampling location is that it is on a volcanic deposit that may have formed closer to 1 billion years ago,\u201d Denevi said. \u201cThat might sound old still, but for the Moon, that would have been the last major gasp of volcanism, so those samples will give us what may have been the final chapter in the story of volcanic eruptions on the Moon and how the interior of the moon evolved over time as eruptions waned.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s next lunar mission, Chang\u2019e 6, will attempt to return samples from the Moon\u2019s south pole region in 2023.<\/p>\n

Wu said China will launch the Chang\u2019e 7 and Chang\u2019e 8 robotic lunar missions to test technologies and perform further scientific research before China sends astronauts to the Moon. He did not say when the Chang\u2019e 7, Chang\u2019e 8, or a future human expedition might launch.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staff members handle the capsule containing lunar samples returned by the Chang\u2019e 5 mission. Credit: Xinhua Chinese officials say they plan to share a portion of the nearly 4 pounds of lunar material returned by the Chang\u2019e 5 mission with other countries, but an allocation for U.S. scientists will hinge on a change in U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1942,1943,135,482,625,190,1528,1944],"class_list":["post-11933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-change","tag-change-5","tag-china","tag-cnsa","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-sample-return","tag-wolf-amendment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}