A spacecraft launched from China in May is preparing to land on the far side of the moon – an unexplored place that few have attempted to explore.
The Chang’e-6 mission aims to collect precious rocks and soil from the region for the first time in history.
The probe could extract some of the moon’s oldest rocks from a giant crater at the moon’s south pole.
But landing is fraught with risk because communicating with the spacecraft becomes difficult once it reaches the far side of the moon.
Since its launch from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on May 3, the Chang’e-6 spacecraft has been orbiting the moon, waiting to land.
On Sunday, the lander portion of the mission will separate from the orbiter and attempt to land on the side of the moon permanently away from Earth.
If successful, it should take three days to collect materials from the surface.
John Penne-Fisher, who specializes in lunar geology at the University of Manchester, explained: “Everyone is really excited because we might be seeing these rocks that no one has seen before.”
He analyzed other moon rocks brought back by the U.S. Apollo missions and previous Chinese missions.
But he said the chance to analyze rocks from completely different regions of the moon could answer fundamental questions about how planets formed.
Most of the rocks collected so far are volcanic rocks, similar to what we might find in Iceland or Hawaii.
But the material at the far end will have a different chemical composition.
“This will help us answer the really big questions, like how did the planets form, why did the crust form, what is the origin of water in the solar system?” he said.
According to the China National Space Administration, the mission aims to collect about 2 kilograms of material using drills and robotic arms.
The probe will visit an impact crater called the South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system.
From there, it can collect material from deep within the lunar mantel, the lunar core, Professor Penne-Fisher said.
The moon’s South Pole is the next frontier for lunar exploration missions – an area countries are eager to learn about because of the likelihood of ice there.
Access to water would greatly increase the chances of successfully establishing a human scientific research base on the moon.
If the mission is successful, the spacecraft will return to Earth with the precious samples and load them on a special return capsule.
The materials will be preserved under special conditions to preserve their original condition as much as possible.
Scientists in China will first have the opportunity to analyze the rocks, with researchers around the world subsequently able to apply for the opportunity.
This is the second time China has launched a lunar sample collection mission.
In 2020, Chang’e 5 brought back 1.7 kilograms of material from an area called “Oceanus Procellarum” on the near side of the moon.
China plans to conduct three more unmanned missions within a decade to search for water on the moon and study establishing a permanent base there.
