China set to fetch first rocks from mysterious far side of the Moon

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Chang’e-6 to target the largest and oldest lunar impact crater

The Moon’s South Pole–Aitken Basin is one of the largest impact craters in the Solar System.There’s a giant hole on the backside of the Moon. The South Pole–Aitken Basin, the Moon’s largest and oldest impact crater, is more than 2500 kilometers wide and 8 kilometers deep—nearly big enough to swallow two Indias and hide the Himalayas. Now, China plans to land in it.

Chang’e-6, the latest in a series of missions named after a mythical Moon goddess, follows Chang’e-5, which returned the. Like its predecessor, the Chang’e-6 orbiter will drop a lander that will drill and scoop up 2 kilograms of soil and rock. An ascender module will ferry the samples back to the orbiter for the trip home and a final plunge by parachute in a return capsule, 53 days after launch..

Dating material melted by the SPA event itself could help “settle the question of whether or not the Moon and the inner Solar System underwent the late heavy bombardment,” van der Bogert says. But Chang’e-6 will need luck: Most rocks at the expected sampling sites are basalts—lavas from later volcanic eruptions. Another lucky break would be finding a fragment of the lunar mantle, gouged from a depth of tens of kilometers.

Chang’e-6 is carrying payloads from France, Italy, Sweden, and Pakistan, evidence that China continues to internationalize its space program. For 48 hours, a French instrument mounted on the lander will study the origin and dynamics of the lunar exosphere, a wispy layer of gases that hugs the surface. One goal is to explain sharp variations seen in the exosphere’s density by time and location.

 

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