China News Service, Beijing, November 27th. Comprehensive news: China successfully launched the lunar exploration project Chang'e 5 probe on the 24th, starting China's first return journey for sampling of extraterrestrial objects.
The mission period is about 23 days. As one of the core key points of the mission, Chang'e-5 will collect about 2 kilograms of lunar soil from the lunar surface by drilling and surface extraction to return to the earth.
The lunar soil is the transition zone from the solid lithosphere of the moon to the space of the solar system, which contains a lot of information about the relevant area.
The study of the lunar soil not only involves the moon itself, but also contains important information about the space matter and energy of the solar system.
In addition, studying lunar rocks is also of great significance to the development of lunar resources.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union "dug earth" from the moon before.
Public data shows that in 1969, the American Apollo 11, which realized the first successful landing of humans on the moon, collected 21.55 kilograms of lunar samples; in 1970, the Soviet Union Lunar 16 collected 101 grams of lunar samples, which was the first time in human history to realize automatic sampling on the moon. And returned to Earth; in 1972, the US Apollo 17, which realized the last successful landing of mankind so far, collected 110.5 kilograms of lunar samples.
Chang'e 5 will be the Moon 24 of the Soviet Union in 1976, the first time it has been to the moon for soil sampling in 44 years.
Once successful, China will become the third country in the world to return to the moon after the United States and Russia. This has also attracted the attention of scientists from many countries.
Yevgeny Slyuta, director of the Lunar and Planetary Geochemistry Laboratory of the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the Satellite News Agency that Russian scientists hope to obtain lunar soil samples from their Chinese counterparts, but talks have not yet begun on this.
"Ask any scientist in the world, Europeans or Americans, of course (want to get lunar soil)."
James Head, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University in the United States, said in an interview with the media that the landing zone of Chang'e 5 on the lunar surface is one of the most interesting areas on the moon. Studying this area can help researchers confirm 1 to 2 billion years. Whether the former moon is still active volcano.
After the lunar samples collected by Chang'e 5 are brought back to the earth, researchers will conduct in-depth analysis and research, which will provide a large amount of precious new information, which has "revolutionary" significance for increasing mankind's understanding of the history of the moon.
Patrick Michel, an astrophysicist at the French National Center for Scientific Research at the French Riviera Observatory, said that analyzing lunar soil samples is like exploring the ancient memory of the solar system. Every sample brought back to Earth by space missions, whether from the moon or asteroids, is deepening mankind’s understanding of the universe. (Finish)