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- Jonathan Amos
- BBC Science Correspondent
Chang’e-5 hurtled into lunar orbit with precious lunar samples.
China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission has completed a new phase of work, powering up and going into orbit with samples collected from the lunar surface.
At 23:10 on December 3 Beijing time (15:10 GMT), the Chang’e 5 ascendant fired the engine in time as planned to engage the orbital return assembly that brought the rocks and the dust from the moon back to earth. .
The last time a lunar sample was brought to Earth was more than 40 years ago.
To achieve the mission’s success, Chang’e-5 still has several key steps to complete.
The ascendant must merge with the orbiter and the sample must be transferred and transferred.
These samples will be kept in the container and are expected to reach Inner Mongolia. To return to the ground, the returner must also experience a violent, high-speed descent process through the Earth’s atmosphere.
Image source,CNSA / CLEP
Chang’e 5 landed on the northwest side of the front of the moon.
At about 11 o’clock in the afternoon on December 1 Beijing time, Chang’e 5 landed on the moon, and then immediately began surface sampling and nearby lunar soil drilling sampling.
The lunar landing hardware is equipped with a power descent system that will be left on the moon when Chang’e 5 leaves the lunar surface.
Chinese TV channels broadcast a video of Chang’e 5 leaving the surface of the moon.
A camera was installed on the surface of the landing system from an upward looking angle, this camera recorded the ignition of the ascender’s rocket motor and its rapid departure.
If the Chinese controllers advance the next steps according to the original public schedule, the ascendant docking and the orbital return assembly will take place on Saturday, GMT.
Red indicates the location of the Chang’e-5 sampling mission. Yellow represents the Apollo mission sampling location.
If there are no accidents in this process, the lunar samples should be returned to Earth by the middle of this month.
The last time humans conducted a mission to retrieve samples from the moon was in 1976.
In the past, soil and lunar rock samples brought to Earth by American astronauts from Apollo and the Soviet Union’s unmanned lunar project weighed less than 400 kilograms.
But these samples are very old, more than 3 billion years old. The material brought in by Chang’e-5 will be very different.
The lunar sampling plan requires a short process.
The target of this mission in China is a tall volcano called Mons Rümker. It is located northwest of the front face of the moon.
The history of the samples here must not exceed 1.2 billion or 1.3 billion years. And this will provide us with more information about the geological history of the moon.
These samples will also help scientists more accurately calibrate the “astronomical clock” they use to determine the time of events in the solar system.
The “astronomical clock” is made by researchers who count craters: the more craters, the older the surface. But this depends on deterministic dating of a number of locations, and samples brought back from the Apollo and Soviet projects played a key role in this in the past. Chang’e-5 can provide more data points.
Image source,CNSA
Artwork: The mission plan will collect 2 kilograms of material from the lunar surface.
China launches Chang’e-5 probe to fly to the moon and take samples of rocky soil
