China's Chang’e-5 Probe Brings Back Fresh Lunar Soil Samples After Four Decades
China's Chang’e-5 mission successfully returned lunar soil samples to Earth, marking the first such achievement in over 40 years and expanding humanity's understanding of the Moon.
Only the United States and the former Soviet Union had previously managed to bring lunar samples back to Earth.
China's Chang’e-5 spacecraft has successfully delivered a capsule containing lunar soil samples back to Earth. Experts located the 300-kilogram descent module in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. At the landing site, a Chinese flag was planted to commemorate the mission's success—the first lunar sample return mission since 1976.
The return capsule of China’s Chang’e-5 probe brings back the country’s first samples collected from the moon, also the world’s freshest lunar samples in over 40 years https://t.co/IXcJ5Nj1dV pic.twitter.com/wBmyOUqofO
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) December 17, 2020
The Chang’e-5 probe was launched to the Moon on November 24. It touched down near Mons Rümker in the Oceanus Procellarum region on the Moon's near side. Over 48 hours, it drilled a borehole and collected approximately 2 kilograms of lunar soil for scientific study. On December 3, Chang’e-5 transferred the sample capsule to its orbiting module, which then returned to Earth.
Additionally, the Chang’e-5 mission planted a Chinese national flag on the lunar surface.
The China National Space Administration released a photograph on Friday showing the country’s five-star red national flag on the moon with Chang’e 5 vehicle. #ChangE5 https://t.co/X8Y8alzLos pic.twitter.com/p75GIds54D
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) December 7, 2020
Before China, only two countries—the USA and the USSR—had successfully returned lunar soil to Earth, with the last mission occurring 44 years ago. In July 2019, India attempted a lunar landing with its Vikram lander carrying the Pragyan rover, but the lander crashed.
On December 15, Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 returned to Earth with samples from the asteroid Ryugu, marking another complex mission completed with success.
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