The samples were returned to Earth in December 2020
The Moon rocks brought back by China’s Chang’e 5 sample return mission came from a young lava flow – the youngest ever to be sampled on the lunar surface. Analysis of the rocks has revealed that they are two billion years old, at least a billion years younger than the samples returned by NASA’s Apollo missions during the 1960s and early 1970s.
“These young eruption ages are really exciting as it’s a complete mystery how the interior of the Moon stayed hot enough to generate such youthful lava flows only two billion years ago,” says Dr Romain Tartèse from the University of Manchester, who studied some of the samples.
The landing site of Chang’e 5 was chosen because its terrain appeared to be much younger than other (previously visited) lunar sites, so it would increase the diversity of lunar samples available for study. Geologists are already getting very excited about samples from the upcoming Chang’e 6 mission, as these will be the first to be returned from the far side of the Moon. www.cnsa.gov.cn/english