China Plans Three Moon-Mining Missions After Finding a Potential New Source of Energy. The Chinese discovery of a phosphate mineral in columnar crystal has the nation clamoring for more of the Moon. A 2020 mission brought back minerals to China, leading to the discovery of a phosphate mineral now named Changesite-(Y).
China and Russia have their own lunar base in development, a collaboration between the two countries called the International Lunar Research Station. In order to avoid hauling resources from Earth to sustain those habitats, space programs are hoping to harvest resources from the moon's icy surface.
The UN's Outer Space Treaty — which both the U.S. and China are party to — forbids nations from laying claim to all or part of the Moon.
No one can own the moon
"A nation can plant a flag on the moon, but it doesn't have any legal meaning or consequence. This is entrained in the Outer Space Treaty, where it's written that no country can claim sovereignty on the moon or make it its own territory," said Soucek.
Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. This fundamental principle of “non-appropriation” prevents any nation from claiming sovereignty over the Moon or any other celestial body.
China's Yutu-2 rover has discovered several mysterious, translucent glass globules on the far side of the moon, which scientists say are unlike any mineral they had previously discovered on the lunar surface.
Scientists found a single crystal of a new phosphate mineral while analyzing lunar basalt particles, which were collected from the moon two years ago by the Chang'e-5 mission.
China plans to launch three unmanned missions to the moon over the next 10 years, as it seeks to rival the US in the new era of space exploration.
So, why haven't they sent humans back to the moon yet? The two primary causes are money and priorities. The race to put people on the moon was sparked in 1962 by US President John F. Kennedy's 'We Choose to Go to the Moon' address, in which he pledged that by the end of the decade, an American would walk on the moon'.
China has returned helium-3 from the moon, opening door to future technology. The Chinese Chang'e 5 mission has returned a new mineral from the lunar surface.
The moon isn't so barren after all. A 2009 NASA mission—in which a rocket slammed into the moon and a second spacecraft studied the blast—revealed that the lunar surface contains an array of compounds, including gold, silver, and mercury, according to PBS.
The mineral, dubbed Changesite-(Y), is the sixth mineral discovered on the Moon by humankind and the first new mineral discovered on the Moon by China, making it the third country in the world, after the US and Russia, to discover a lunar mineral.
China's Chang'e 5 lunar lander just marked a historic first: The spacecraft became the first to detect water on the moon at its landing site in real time.
Images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have shown that the American flags left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts are still standing– except for the Apollo 11 mission, which Buzz Aldrin reported as being knocked over by engine exhaust as Apollo 11 lifted off.
Moon mining can and should be done with care and restraint. But even if we were to remove a metric ton from the moon each day, it would take 220 million years to remove one percent of the moon's mass, and even that wouldn't affect its orbit or the tides.
Forget Earth, Tripura man gifts himself a piece of land on the Moon for Rs 6,000. Suman Debnath, from Sabroom of South Tripura District, paid Rs 6,000 to International Lunar Society to buy one acre of land on the Moon.
Short answer: you can't. No one can. The relevant provision of the OST is Article II which states: “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
There are some extremely valuable resources on the moon that could support such a lunar economy. Helium-3 is one moon resource that is rare on earth but much more abundant on the lunar surface and could potentially be cheaper to mine from the moon. Helium-3 is a very attractive fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors.
NASA scientists have unsealed an extraterrestrial time capsule 50 years after astronauts collected the rock and dust from the moon and sealed it away before returning to Earth. The precious sample from Apollo 17 is one of the last pristine remaining bits of the moon.
China has been the source of many innovations, scientific discoveries and inventions. This includes the Four Great Inventions: papermaking, the compass, gunpowder, and printing (both woodblock and movable type).
NASA is on a mission to explore a Greek-named asteroid called 16 Psyche that contains a double-edged sword. Made completely of metal, it boasts enough gold to either make every person on Earth a billionaire—or to collapse the gold market and destabilize the entire global financial world.
Scientists have found evidence of cubic zirconia in Moon rocks, showing that the universe not only holds diamonds, but its own fire-safe knock-offs.
Deep within Neptune and Uranus, it rains diamonds—or so astronomers and physicists have suspected for nearly 40 years.
The crash is expected to create a new crater, but it will not significantly damage the moon, Gray said.