The China National Space Administration\u2019s (CNSA) Chang\u2019e 6 lunar lander sits on the southern portion of the Apollo crater on the moon. The craft touched down there at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time, June 2 (June 1, 2024 at 22:23 UTC). On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, the mission\u2019s sample return capsule landed in the Siziwang Banner province of China\u2019s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Credit: CNSA via NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFar side lunar real estate came to Earth on Tuesday<\/h3>\n
In another success for the burgeoning Chinese space industry, the Chang\u2019e 6 lunar probe touched down successfully on Tuesday, June 25, 2024 in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a province in the north of the country. The craft was launched by the China National Space Agency (CNSA) on May 3. It reached the moon June 1, and completed the lunar sample return mission 53 days later.<\/p>\n
The probe made landfall in the Apollo Basin, a region in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, an enormous crater on the moon\u2019s far side. This site is one of the oldest and largest impact features found in the solar system. It is 4 billion years old.<\/p>\n
The sample is expected to contain 2.5 million-year-old lunar dust, aka regolith. AP reports China intends to share the sample with international researchers.<\/p>\n
Chang\u2019e 6 mission marks advance in lunar exploration<\/h3>\n
The sample of the little-studied far side of the moon will be of great interest to lunar geologists, as an ongoing international effort to return to Earth\u2019s natural satellite continues gaining momentum. China is one of many countries \u2013 including the United States, Japan, South Korea, India and Russia \u2013 currently focused on establishing a long-term human presence on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n
Primarily, the sample will provide insight into how the moon\u2019s two faces differ. And it may offer clues to early solar system history hidden in ancient meteorite debris. But the real achievement of Chang\u2019e 6 is technological, Richard de Grijs, a professor of astrophysics at Macquarie University in Australia, told the AP.<\/p>\n
\nThis is a global first in the sense that it\u2019s the first time anyone has been able to take off from the far side of the moon and bring back samples.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Chang\u2019e 6 demonstrates Chinese space program\u2019s growing abilities<\/h3>\n
AP also quoted Chinese president Xi Jinping, who called the Chang\u2019e 6 mission a \u201clandmark achievement in our country\u2019s efforts at becoming a space and technological power.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this wasn\u2019t an easy assignment. NASA described Chang\u2019e 6\u2019s mission objectives:<\/p>\n
\nThe mission objective was to collect about 2 kg (4.4 pounds) of material from the far side of the moon and bring it back to Earth. A scoop and drill were used in order to obtain samples from the surface and from as deep as 2 meters (6.5 feet) below the surface. The samples were placed in the ascent vehicle, which was mounted on top of the lander.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The lander also deployed a small rover, which snapped a picture of its mothership (see above). Once aloft, the ascent vehicle mated with the Chang\u2019e 6 orbiter, transferred the lunar sample and crashed back into the lunar surface. The return vehicle left the moon\u2019s orbit around June 21.<\/p>\n
Bottom line: The Chinese moon mission Chang\u2019e 6 brought the first sample of the moon\u2019s far side ever returned to Earth on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The craft reached the moon 25 days earlier.<\/p>\n
Read more: A new space junk catalog for moon missions<\/p>\n
Via AP.<\/p>\n
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Dave Adalian<\/h4>\n
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About the Author:<\/h6>\n
Award-winning reporter and editor Dave Adalian’s love affair with the cosmos began during a long-ago summer school trip to the storied and venerable Lick Observatory atop California’s Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose in the foggy Diablos Mountain Range and far above Monterey Bay at the edge of the endless blue Pacific Ocean. That field trip goes on today, as Dave still pursues his nocturnal adventures, perched in the darkness at his telescope’s eyepiece or chasing wandering stars through the fields of night with the unaided eye.
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\nA lifelong resident of California’s Tulare County – an agricultural paradise where the Great San Joaquin Valley meets the Sierra Nevada in endless miles of grass-covered foothills – Dave grew up in a wilderness larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, one choked with the greatest diversity of flora and fauna in the US, one which passes its nights beneath pitch black skies rising over the some of highest mountain peaks and greatest roadless areas on the North American continent.
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\nDave studied English, American literature and mass communications at the College of the Sequoias and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked as a reporter and editor for a number of news publications on- and offline during a career spanning nearly 30 years so far. His fondest literary hope is to share his passion for astronomy and all things cosmic with anyone who wants to join in the adventure and explore the universe’s past, present and future.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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