The Chang’e-6 capsule has delivered two kilograms of material from the Moon to Earth. Experts are looking into why this is so important and how this material might differ from what planetologists already have.
So, today, taking into account the Chang’e-6 capsule that landed on June 25, 2024, there are samples of lunar soil on Earth with a total weight of more than 380 kilograms, taken from 11 different places on the surface of the Moon. Let’s remember who, when and from where exactly brought the lunar substance. We will remember in chronological order.
First In history, lunar soil was collected and delivered to Earth in July 1969 by the astronauts of the legendary Apollo 11 mission. Let us recall that the first people on the Moon were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins was waiting in lunar orbit. The landing site was the Sea of Tranquility, one of the largest and most visible lunar seas from Earth with the naked eye. From there, 22 kilograms of regolith were collected and delivered to Earth. These turned out to be mainly basalts, that is, essentially lunar magma that had solidified in time immemorial. The age of the rocks varies from approximately three to more than four billion years, that is, they are very ancient, and many date back to the times when the Moon itself was just formed as such.
In general, it became clear to planetologists (and these are geologists who study other worlds) that the Moon is very diverse in the composition and age of its rocks, and one batch of soil will not be enough to get a good idea of it. Samples from different places are needed: the more different, the better. Here, the amount of soil itself is not as important as the number of places where it is collected. Five hundred tons is not necessary, even half a gram is enough to see under a microscope what happened and is happening on the Moon in a particular place. However, a large amount is good from the point of view that now you can examine a little under a microscope, and put the rest off until more advanced technology appears. This is exactly what lunar geologists do. They have a lot of untouched, unstudied samples in their reserves. And who knows how many discoveries they contain.
Second batch: “Apollo 12”, November 1969, Ocean of Storms, 36 kilograms. Suspicions were confirmed: this soil was noticeably different, it was much younger – about 2.5 billion years old. There was more lunar dust on it. By the way, this dust is a rare nastiness: due to static electricity, it sticks to the spacesuit – no matter how hard you shake it off, you can’t get rid of it completely – and upon returning from the surface, the astronauts inhaled it to one degree or another.
Third batch: delivered in September 1970 by the Soviet interplanetary station Luna-16, which was equipped with a drilling rig. It landed in the Sea of Abundance. This was the first time in history that an automatic vehicle delivered extraterrestrial matter to Earth. Luna-16 drilled about 35 centimeters and collected 101 grams of soil: loose, but easily sticking together into lumps of dark gray powder. Also volcanic basalt.
Fourth game: Apollo 14, February 1971, Fra Mauro crater in Mare Posnensis (part of the Ocean of Storms), 42 kilograms. The most famous of this batch was an 8-kilogram rock nicknamed Big Bertha after a German howitzer from World War I. Geologists have determined that this is actually a meteorite that flew to the Moon from Earth. Some news headlines even played on this by saying that “lunar sample turned out to be from Earth.” But in fact, this Earth rock had been lying on the Moon for more than four billion years. It is believed that it was knocked off the surface of our planet by the impact of a massive asteroid and, after flying around in space for some time, was eventually pulled into the Moon.
Fifth game: Apollo 15, July-August 1971, southeast of the Sea of Rains, 77 kilograms. This time the crew had a drilling rig with them, with which they managed to go deeper by more than one and a half meters. Astronauts David Scott and James Irwin sweated a lot with it and even at some point asked Houston how important all this was. They were told that yes, it was important: these would be samples taken from a depth unprecedented at that time. And in the end, they really did manage to get soil that had not been exposed to cosmic radiation for millions of years under the reliable protection of the upper layers of the lunar soil.
Sixth game: Soviet station “Luna-20”, February 1972, 55 grams of soil, landing site – a site adjacent to the Sea of Abundance. These samples were much lighter than those from “Luna-16”, and with far fewer melted particles.
Seventh game: “Apollo 16”, April 1972, Descartes crater near the Sea of Nectar, almost 96 kilograms of lunar soil. This time they drilled to a depth of almost 2.5 meters. The collected regolith greatly surprised geologists: they expected to see homogeneous volcanic rocks again, but it turned out that there were mainly breccias, that is, various pebbles stuck together. According to scientists, they were formed as a result of an asteroid bombardment.
Eighth game: “Apollo 17”, December 1972, Taurus-Littrow Valley in the southeast of the Sea of Serenity, more than 110 kilograms of lunar rock. This time they had not only a drill, but even their own geologist Harrison Schmitt, who saw with an experienced eye where something was remarkable and interesting. They made a hole on the Moon with Eugene Cernan more than three meters deep. And they also found amazing “orange” lunar soil, which, as was later established on Earth, is rich in titanium and iron.
Ninth game: “Luna-24”, August 1976, Sea of Crises, 170 grams of lunar soil, drilling depth – 2 meters 25 centimeters. As reported by the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the station brought a new and specific type of basalt for science.
Tenth game: Chinese station “Chang’e-5”, Rümker Peak in the Ocean of Storms, 1731 grams. The station’s drill was designed for a depth of 2.5 meters, but the rock turned out to be so hard that it was only able to reach a depth of a meter or so. Geologists were surprised again: Rümker Peak is a volcanic complex, and the basalts collected by the Chinese station turned out to be relatively very young – only about two billion years old. Scientists believed that the Moon was already too cold for volcanism at that time.
Eleventh game: weighing about two kilograms has just been delivered by the Chang’e-6 station. It differs from all the previous ones in that it is the first soil obtained from the far side of the Moon. The landing site is the 540-kilometer Apollo crater, which is located in the space of an absolutely huge crater in the south polar region of the Moon. It is called the South Pole-Aitken basin because it extends for 2,400 kilometers from the south pole of the Moon to the Aitken crater. Geologists are interested in this place because such a serious impact on the Moon should have brought rocks from a depth of tens of kilometers to the surface. They can tell a lot about the internal structure of the Moon, how it arose and what happened to it during the four-plus billion years of its existence.
It is also interesting to see how much the far side of the Moon is exposed to solar radiation compared to the visible side: astronomers have long speculated that it would be great to have radio observatories there – there is no interference from Earth. It is worth noting that the lunar polar regions are also particularly interesting because, according to satellite data, they are rich in water ice. But, unfortunately, in this sense, the soil of Chang’e-6 is not expected to be very dry.
Samples from all three Soviet stations and some Apollo ones are stored in the Museum of Extraterrestrial Matter of the Geochemistry and Analytical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Incidentally, geologists from Geochemistry and Analytical Institute recently said that they, of course, compared the samples delivered by the Soviet Union with those brought by the Apollo astronauts. And after the recent arrival of Chinese lunar soil, it became possible to compare the samples delivered by all three space powers.
They compared them in terms of chemistry, isotope ratios, etc. So, as the scientists said, the samples from all three countries have such unique chemical features that are not found anywhere else: neither in terrestrial matter, nor in meteorite matter (unless it is a lunar meteorite), nor in any matter – only in lunar matter. That is, in all three cases, scientists can definitely say: this is the Moon.
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2024-07-02 18:46:53