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For a few hours on Earth there have been around 2 kilograms of lunar rocks, the first to reach our planet in the last 44 years. They were transported by the Chinese space mission Chang’e 5, which at dawn on Thursday (in Italy it was Wednesday afternoon) completed its 23-day journey to reach the moon, take samples, and bring them back. China is the third country in the history of space exploration that has transported lunar rocks to Earth: it was one of the most complex missions that it has carried out beyond the orbit of our planet.
Return
The capsule containing the lunar cargo landed in central Inner Mongolia, the Chinese autonomous region in the north of the country, chosen for most returns from Chinese space missions. It was quickly identified by the recovery teams, who secured the rocks, taking care to keep them isolated from the outside environment to avoid contamination. Their study could offer new details about the geological history of the Moon and its origins, important details to better understand how our solar system has evolved.
Mission
Chang’e 5, whose name derives from the Moon goddess in various Chinese mythologies, left the Wenchang Space Center on Hainan Island in southern China on November 23, powered by a Long March 5 rocket, the most popular launcher. large powerful so far developed by China. The launch was broadcast by the main television networks and followed with great interest, thanks to the propaganda work carried out by the Chinese government in the previous days to promote a new large national company.
After traveling for a few days and remaining in orbit around the Moon, on December 1 a lander had detached itself from the rest of the instrumentation and had made a controlled lunar landing.
Here is the video of the lunar landing made up of 635 frames sent by the Chang’E 5 lander. The camera has twice the pixels of the previous Chang’E 3 and 4. The lens is also wider than the previous mission.
Live CCTV Recorded Screen. pic.twitter.com/Y7whmweq56– Ruohong Zhao (@rhZhao) December 2, 2020
After touching the lunar soil unharmed, the robot had collected some samples from the surface and others deeper, thanks to a small drill capable of sinking about 2 meters. The material was then collected on a lift module, which used the rest of the lander as a mini launch pad to return to orbit, reconnecting with the rest of the instrumentation. The cargo was then transferred to a service module, which was then embarked on the journey back to Earth.
Images of the ascent vehicle taking off from the Moon and back into space pic.twitter.com/yJfeVNi6Bo
– Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) December 3, 2020
Similarities
Although small, the system adopted by Chang’e 5 closely resembles the way the Apollo missions were organized, which led to the landing of the first humans in 1969. Three astronauts landed on the moon aboard a command module. , connected to a service module and a lunar module (LEM), which included an ascent module. An astronaut remained in the command and service module, in orbit around the moon, while his two traveling companions reached the lunar floor aboard the LEM. At the end of their stay on the Moon, they used the lower part of the LEM as a launch pad, from which the ascent module departed to reach the other orbiting modules, with which they returned to Earth.
Chang’e 5 has successfully carried out the same operations, allowing the Chinese Space Agency to collect important data, useful for organizing missions to the Moon with humans in the future. Plans for human lunar exploration have yet to be made fully public, but the Chinese space program expects manned missions to be organized by 2030, some 60 years after the first moon landing in the United States.
(NASA.gov)
Rocks
The lunar rocks that reached Earth were part of theOceanus procellarum (“Ocean of Storms), a vast plateau with relatively uniform soil found on the visible side of the Moon. Researchers speculate that it was formed after some ancient volcanic eruptions, the magma of which covered much of the area. This would explain the presence of less obvious and marked craters than those in other areas of the satellite. The samples that Chang’e 5 brought us could be very useful to better understand the history of the Moon and the dynamics that led it to appear as we see it today.
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