Moon's far side witnessed volcanic eruptions for more than one billion years
Representational image of Moon. (Courtesy: Pixabay) Photograph:( Others )
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The lunar samples collected by the Chang'e-6 mission helped scientists investigate the Moon's dichotomy and find its history of volcanic eruptions
The lunar samples collected by the Chang'e-6 mission helped scientists investigate the Moon's dichotomy and find its history of volcanic eruptions
A group of scientists, headed by Professor XU Yigang from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIGCAS), are investigating the unusual lunar characteristics.
In this study of lunar soil samples, which have been collected from the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin which is on the Moon's far side by China's Chang'e-6 mission, scientists have discovered the mysterious past of the Moon.
The samples have helped scientists investigate the dichotomy of the Moon.
With the help of soil samples, a team of Professor XU found the existence of two various types of mare basalts which are – low-Ti, and very low-Ti (VLT).
“The samples returned by Chang’e-6 provide the best opportunity to investigate the lunar global dichotomy,” Professor XU said.
Chang'e 6 was launched by the Chinese space programme on May 3 and was their latest Moon mission. The spacecraft was blasted off at 9:27 UT (5:27 PM Beijing time) from Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre.
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On a huge crater, known as the South Pole Aitken Basin, the lander touched down after which the team used a scoop and a drill to dig up the surface samples and went 2 metres deeper into the lunar soil.
A small rover was also sent which cruised around and took snapshots of the lander as it worked.
Here's what scientists found on the Moon
The team used high-precision Pb-Pb dating techniques and found that the low-Ti basalt dates back to nearly 2.83 billion years ago.
This discovery confirmed the presence of volcanic activities or “young” magmatism on the Moon's far side.
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Hence, the scientists implied that increased volcanic activities occurred on the Moon's far side for at least 1.4 billion years. This happened between 4.2 billion and 2.8 billion years ago.
Independent planetary volcano expert Christopher Hamilton said the samples collected from the uncharted lunar territory played a major role in this discovery.
(With inputs from agencies)
