Chinese scientists recently announced their discovery of a new lunar mineral among samples collected from the moon during a mission two years ago, adding to the body of knowledge of the Earth's satellite that had been the focus of earlier space exploration.
China discovers strange glass beads on moon that may contain billions of tons of water. Scientists detected water trapped inside glass spherules on the moon after analyzing soil samples brought back by China's Chang'e-5 mission.
Since March 2021, Chinese archaeologists have uncovered major finds at the site's six newly found sacrificial pits. More than 500 artifacts, such as ivory, bronze, gold and jade items, dating back about 3,000 years to the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) were discovered.
It was found in lunar basalt particles being examined in laboratories in China. The discovery was made by researchers at the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology who found a single crystal of Changesite–(Y) using X-ray diffraction while studying particles collected on the moon.
More than 1.7 kg of lunar samples were collected and delivered safely to Earth. The Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology has named the phosphate mineral Changesite-(Y), after the mythological Chinese goddess of the moon, Chang'e. The crystal is transparent and roughly the width of a single human hair.
The rover's panoramic camera spotted the two glass spheres as it drove across the surface of Von Kármán crater on the far side of the moon. The Apollo astronauts previously collected similar glass globules of about the same size, but those examples were mostly dark or opaque.
HELSINKI — China has revealed a concept for a lunar lander it hopes will put astronauts on the moon around the end of the decade. A model of the Chinese lunar lander was unveiled at an exhibition to mark three decades of China's human spaceflight program Feb. 24 at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
The scientists found a single crystal of a new phosphate mineral that they have named Changesite-(Y) while analyzing particles of lunar basalt, or hardened fragments of lava, The Global Times, a state-run newspaper and website, reported.
A Chinese probe has recently discovered a hidden water source on the moon which has been found locked in glass beads. About 1731 g of regolith samples were brought back by China's Chang'e-5 lunar lander back in 2020.
Availability on the Moon
Lithium is available in the lunar regolith. Average concentration is low at 10 ppm.
They discovered that there are three cave entrances in the chasm and ancient trees 131 feet tall, stretching their branches toward the sunlight that filters through the sinkhole entrance.
Cave explorers stumbled upon a prehistoric forest at the bottom of a giant sinkhole in South China earlier this month. Sinkholes such as these are also known in Chinese as Tiankeng, or "Heavenly pit." At 630 feet deep, the sinkhole would hide the Washington Monument and then some.
The Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum fossils were discovered in August 1987 when the broken end of an enormous neck rib was uncovered at a site in the Shishugou Formation in northwestern China.
There might have been more water on Mars than previously anticipated, according to new data from scientists monitoring China's Zhurong rover on the planet.
China has discovered the explanation for the mysterious "hut" its Yutu 2 rover spotted on the moon late last year. As the lunar rover made a closer approach, a log of its activities revealed the object was actually just a rock on a crater rim.
These titanium-rich areas on the moon puzzled the researchers. The highest abundance of titanium in similar rocks on Earth hovers around 1 percent or less, the scientists explained. The new map shows that these troves of titanium on the moon range from about 1 percent to a little more than 10 percent.
Some of these protons interact with oxygen molecules in the lunar soil to produce water. This water isn't anything like what you could drink, though: it's in such small amounts that the lunar soil is still hundreds of times drier than Earth's deserts.
It was 1976 when Russia claimed they were the first country to discover water on the Moon. It happened, Russia said, in the Luna 24 mission that reportedly found water.
In 2020, NASA announced the discovery of water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. Data from the Strategic Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), revealed that in Clavius crater, water exists in concentrations roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water within a cubic meter of soil across the lunar surface.
And the Moon may also have ores of rare, incompatible, lithophile elements such as beryllium, lithium, zirconium, niobium, tantalum, and so forth.
According to the paper, the breccia — broken fragment of minerals cemented together — was formed by impact-generated welding, cementing and agglutinating of lunar regolith and breccia. The material, they say, resembles lunar impact melt breccia samples returned by NASA's Apollo missions.
The Moon is dominantly composed of silicate minerals. Typically, plagioclase is by far the most abundant and there commonly are substantial amounts of pyroxenes and olivines. Together, these three mineral groups usually, but not always, make up >95% of the crystalline material in the rock and the regolith.
Apart from the Apollo 11 flag, which is believed to have been lost, the others were planted during Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17. According to images captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter during different times of day, shadows in the areas where the flags were planted indicate they're still standing.
How many flags are on the Moon? A total of six flags have been planted on the Moon – one for each US Apollo landing.
The Proton-based Zond program was canceled in 1970, and the N1-L3 program was de facto terminated in 1974 and officially canceled in 1976. Soviet cosmonauts never orbited nor landed on the Moon.