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China finds signs of magmatic structures on far side of Moon

byadmin
October 24, 2024

China’s Chang’e 6 probe landed on the far side of the Moon in June 2024 and collected samples from the South Pole-Aitken basin. These samples could help us understand the strange differences between the two sides of the Moon.

China’s Chang’e 6 lunar probe successfully landed on the far side of the Moon in early June 2024, making a soft landing near the lunar south pole. The spacecraft’s main mission, along with several side missions, was to study and return the first samples from the far side of the Moon.
The Chang’e 6 probe then returned 1,935 grams of lunar surface samples on June 25.
The far side of the Moon, often referred to as the “dark side,” actually receives about the same amount of sunlight.
However, there are important differences between the two sides that researchers have noticed since space travel began.
Although heavily cratered, the far side of the Moon lacks the deep basins seen on the near side, and its crust was measured to be thicker by the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory missions in 2012.
Studying these samples could help clear up some of these mysteries, and perhaps tell us a little more about how the Moon was formed.
Looking at the samples for the first time, geologists from the University of Hong Kong found that the Chang’e 6 landing site in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin is abundant in magmatism, where magma cools and solidifies to form igneous rock. “The results of this research provide an important geological framework for studying the plutonic rocks in the Chang’e-6 samples, especially the Mg-suite rocks. Their petrogenesis and timing are uncertain, and this research will greatly help understand their origin mechanisms,” said Professor Xianhua Li, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The study, together with previous studies on materials collected from the near side of the Moon and observations, revealed significant volcanic differences between the two sides, which are likely related to crustal thickness. The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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