Rock from 4,200,000,000 years ago confirms something we wondered about the moon
Evidence from a recent study makes it all the more likely that the human endeavour to reduce the impact of our carbon footprint is essential.
China's 'Chang'e-6 spacecraft, the first of its kind to bring back a load of rocks and soil from the much-untouched far side of the Moon.
Researchers discovered fragments of volcanic rock that were estimated to be approximately 2.8 billion years old. One of the samples dated back a staggering 4.2 billion years.
‘Obtaining a sample from this region is vitally important, as without it, we are left with a vast information gap,’ said Christopher Hamilton, a planetary volcanology expert at the University of Arizona.
Scientists are aware that volcanoes on the side of the moon visible from Earth were active during a similar period in the past.
Early research, including information from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, has indicated that the far side may have a history of volcanic activity.
Initial findings from the area not visible from Earth indicate a past marked by activity. These discoveries were released in the journals Nature and Science last Friday.
China has sent numerous spacecraft to the moon in recent years.
In 2020, China's Chang'e-5 spacecraft brought back moon rocks from the near side, a first in nearly half a century, since NASA's Apollo astronauts and the Soviet Union's spacecraft retrieved them in the 1970s.
It was 2019 when the Chang'e-4 spacecraft became the first to explore the moon's far side.
The far side of the moon is noticeable for its numerous craters and relatively fewer dark, flat lava-formed plains compared to the near side.
The reasons behind these disparate halves are a puzzle, remarks Dr Qiu-Li Li, a co-author from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Research indicates that the lunar far side has been home to over a billion years of volcanic eruptions.
The duration of the activity will be the subject of future research to determine.
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