Last December, China’s ambitious lunar sampling mission returned to Earth with the first lunar samples from the Apollo missions of NASA and the Moon of Russia, which ended in 1976.
The first fresh samples in 45 years have been analyzed and contain the answers to previous questions about the moon, creating new ones as well, according to a research published Tuesday in the magazine Nature.
The mission Chang’E-5, named after the moon goddess of traditional Chinese mythology, almost brought it back 4 pounds of lunar soil and rock from a previously unvisited piece of basalt; in this regard it was thought that basalt, a type of rock formed by solidified lava flows, contained evidence of when in the past volcanic activity occurred on the surface of the Moon.
The research team used radiometric dating on 47 basalt fragments, with the largest being “10 pages stacked together” thick, and the smallest being the size of a dust particle, however both, the scientists found, they were about 2 billion years old.
Scientists were surprised to learn that the lunar samples were 800 to 900 million years younger than those indicated by the samples recovered with Apollo and Luna.
“This is the youngest crystallization age ever reported for lunar basalt rocks by radiometric measurement, extending the … ages of the lunar basalt from 800 to 900 million years”
said the researcher Li Chunlai of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a press release accompanying the study.
“This study provides the first conclusive evidence that magmatic activity on the Moon persisted until at least two billion years ago.”
he later added.
Learn more about these new lunar champions
The new samples also helped refine a method for determining the age of a planet, known as crater count history. While the Apollo and Moon samples “provided an initial database for ages ranging from 4 to 3.1 billion years ago, as well as those younger than a billion years ago,” the new Chang’E samples provide data in between , “Fulfilling the long-sought goal of bridging the unanchored central portion of the lunar crater counting history,” Li said.
But the champions also created new mysteries. The Apollo and Luna samples were composed of KREEP, a mixture of potassium, rare earth elements, and phosphorus, but the Chang’E samples were made of a different type of magma.
“According to the previous theory, the KREEP-like components would provide heat to support the longevity of the young magma. However, if this were not the case – as these results suggest – we would have to rethink the mechanisms behind the longevity of the younger lunar magma. activities, ”Li said.
Scientists said the discovery changes the way they think about the “thermal and chemical evolution” of the moon. The research team plans to continue analyzing the samples and hopefully shed some light on how – and why – lunar volcanic activity changed between the Apollo and Luna samples and the Chang’E samples.
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