• 3 years ago
For the first time since 1976, we brought back lunar rocks down to Earth.
The capsule landed in Mongolia on December 16th, 2020 full of moon dirt and rocks. It should have collected 4.4 lbs. if everything went as planned.
China just has become the third nation to bring back moon samples to Earth. The other two are the Soviet Union and the United States.
Samples provided by Chang’e 5 should give a new understanding of the Moon’s history and evolution as the rocks have been collected in a region thought to be old of 1.2 billion years.
Those newest samples will fill a huge gap as the latest samples gathered were 3 billion years older.
Space learning is just beginning as the capsule of Japan’s Hayabusa2 returned on Earth as well on December 5th with samples of asteroid Ryugu.
We’re now expecting on September 2023, Nasa’s OSIRIS-Rex samples of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

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