China’s Chang’e 5 exploration lands down the moon

Photo credits Getty Images

Another Chinese space inquest was sent to the Moon to gather 4.4 lb of rocks from it and return it back to the Earth. It landed successfully on the Moon, said the Chinese officials.

According to a government report, the Chang’e-5 has set off for the Moon on the 24th of November and it has now landed on its pre-selected landing area. The mission was set to be done within one lunar daytime and is converted to 14 Earth days since the exploration is not rigged to defy the cold and freezing night.

The said quest is in addition to the numerous space missions set by the Chinese space programme and it aspires to eventually set a human’s foot on the Moon.

From NASA’s live streams and of others, the Chinese government only shared a single sentence report that said that the spacecraft has successfully landed on the moon in the pre-selected landing area.

The one that touched down the moon’s surface is a lander vehicle-- one of several spacecraft deployed by the Chang’e-5 probe. An ascender vehicle is also set to collect the soil and rock samples before lifting off from the lunar surface.It was said by a State broadcaster CCTV that the lander would collect samples on the moon’s surface in the next two days.

The target of this quest us a 4,265-foot high volcanic complex that is also called as the Mons Rumker.

According to a geological sciences professor at Brown University ‘The area is 'very unusual and nowhere near where we landed before.’

'It raises really important questions because these samples are actually going to tell us how young the moon had volcanic activity, which is an indication of how recently it has been geologically active, a critical question in the evolution of the planets.'

This moon mission of China is beamed to be desirous and this exploration could improve humanity’s understanding of the moon and of the solar system.

The collected samples will be transferred to a return capsule for the trip back to the Earth and it will land in a region in China’s Inner Mongolia later this month.

If it appears successful, this will be considered as the largest selection of Moon rocks that have returned to Earth since the final Apollo mission in 1972 and this would make China the third nation to have brought back moon samples after the US and the Soviet Union.

NASA already addressed the successful launch on Twitter, but the tweet was more of a plea that the country would share its data with the world.

'With Chang'e 5, China has launched an effort to join the U.S. & the former Soviet Union in obtaining lunar samples.’

‘'We hope China shares its data with the global scientific community to enhance our understanding of the Moon like our Apollo missions did & the Artemis program will,' reads NASA's tweet.

According to McDowell, he is pretty optimistic that China can pull this probe off.

Reference:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9006113/Probe-retrieve-lunar-rocks-landed-moon-China-says.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR0A4nUDVsIq4j68ByfwulJk5GVJKbOXm_bRYguQ_RyCoi9HpMShFYGhS9c