China to the US and the Soviet Union, China has brought moon rock to earth for the first time. After the unmanned mission mission landed the capsule of the spaceship “Chang” E 5 “in the early night hours of the Thursday local time with about 2 kg moon samples in the north Chinese steppe, as the state television reported. It”s the first time since 44 years, that moon rock has been brought to earth again.
Salvivors with helicopters and vehicles, which were outlined with strong searchlights, found the capsule landed in the Siziwang Banner in the internal Mongolia using a parachute. She should now be inflated in the capital Beijing. After that, the moon samples were examined by researchers, reported the state news agency Xinhua. Some of the samples will also provide scientists in other countries.
Researchers are looking forward to the moon rock that is much younger than all soil samples collected by the USA and Soviet Union from the ground samples. The investigation could provide new insights over the volcanic activity and history of the moon. The US apollo missions had brought around 380 kg of moon rock. The Soviet Union collected about 300 g with unmanned missions.
1.2 billion years
The land of “Chang” E 5 “had set up in a volcanology named after the German astronomer Karl Rumker (1788-1862), which lies in the” Ocean of the Sturme “. This region in the upper, left part of the earth famous side of the moon is 1.2 billion years old. On the other hand, the age of the lunar rock collected the US and the Soviet Union in the 60s and 70s is attributed to 3.1 billion and 4.4 billion years.
China pursues an ambitious space program with other missions to the moon and Mars as well as building a private space station in the coming years.
In January 2019, China landed as the first space nation with "Chang" E 4 "on the relatively unexplored ground facing side of the moon. A rover was exposed, which continues to explore the surface today. Also, the unmanned Marssonde "Tanwen-1" (questions to the sky) is just on the way to the "Red Planet". Since this week, the spaceship has been more than 100 million kilometers from Earth. In February it should arrive at Mars in order to try the landing in the following weeks, which, however, is considered a lot of risky than moon landings. From 18 country attempts on Mars were only 10 successful – nine by the US alone.