Chinese spacecraft carrying country’s first lunar samples has started its return journey from moon, according to the country’s space authority.
Pooja N Raj
credits: Wikipedia
Chinese spacecraft carrying country’s first lunar samples has started its return journey from moon, according to the country’s space authority.
The spacecraft had been due to collect two kilograms of material from an area known as Oceanus Procellarum — or “Ocean of Storms” — a vast lava plain. Scientists hope the samples will help them learn about the Moon's origins, formation and volcanic activity on its surface. The samples will also allow scientists to more precisely calibrate the "chronometer" they use to age surfaces on the inner Solar System planets.
If successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved samples from the Moon, following the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. This is the first such attempt since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission in 1976.
The samples will be returned to Earth in a capsule programmed to land in northern China's Inner Mongolia region in early December, according to U.S. space agency NASA.