The god of the moon in ancient China returns to Earth. What is the history?

China has become the third country in the world to collect samples from the Moon’s surface, doubling the achievement of the United States and the former Soviet Union, which was achieved in the 1970s.

And the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced on Wednesday that the Chinese probe “Chang’e-5” landed in the Inner Mongolia region in the north of the country, returning from a 3-week trip to the Moon. .

“Chang’e-5” consists of several parts, which are an orbiter (which remained in the moon’s orbit during the mission implementation), a lunar landing craft (which landed on the moon’s surface), and a unit of ascent (from the surface to the orbit of the moon).

The “Chang’e” probe, named after the ancient Chinese moon goddess, lifted off from the Wenchang spacecraft launch site on southern China’s Hainan Island on November 24 and landed on the surface. from the moon in early December, in a huge volcanic plain known as Oceanus Procellarum. Or “a sea of ​​storms.” Where that region consists of a sea of ​​magma.

The returning capsule with the probe, which carries the samples, will be transported to Beijing for analysis and studies, and samples from this region can help scientists understand the materials that make up the moon.

China will also provide some samples for scientists from other countries, Bai Zhaoyu, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, told China’s official Xinhua news agency that Chinese scientists are already making plans to explore the moon in the future. , including a project. To build a scientific research station on the moon, and expressed his hope to “cooperate with other countries to build an international lunar scientific research station, which can provide a common platform for scientific exploration on the moon and technological experiments.”

But China has no advantage in this achievement. In the 1970s, competition was fierce between the United States and the Soviet Union to bring back samples from the moon.

And over the course of six flights from 1969 to 1972, within the Apollo space program, which was credited with establishing the first human feet on the moon’s surface, Washington was able to collect 382 kg of rocks and soil.

The Soviet Union, for its part, sent three successful robotic missions in the 1970s to collect samples, the last of which was “Luna 24” in 1976, which collected 170.1 grams, making China the first country to collect samples of the moon in the world in 44 years.