The latest Chinese space mission confirms that the story about the Moon we believed may be wrong

A few months ago, China made history in the aerospace sector by successfully sending a probe to the far side of the Moon and bringing back rock samples and other chemical elements. At that moment, China took a giant leap in the sector and demonstrated that it is much more advanced than we always believed.

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Well, if reaching where no one had been able to before wasn’t enough, now Chinese scientists believe it’s time to rewrite the history of the Moon after analyzing the samples returned to Earth by the Chang’e 6 mission.

Their opinion appears in an article titled “A reinforced lunar dynamo recorded by Chang’e 6 farside basalt,” published on Thursday in the journal Nature.

A new story that begins with 2.8 billion-year-old basalt

Prepared by 18 researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the article evaluates the paleointensity—a measure of the historical strength of the magnetic field—shown by the samples that Chang’e 6 returned to Earth in June after making the first safe landing on the far side of the Moon.

These samples included basalt that is 2.8 billion years old. Their analysis suggests that the Moon’s magnetic field has increased in intensity, compared to measurements from older samples from other sources.

This is important, as it is believed that the Moon once had a powerful dynamo (a term that refers to the forces that create the magnetic fields of celestial bodies), but it weakened drastically about 3.1 billion years ago and eventually shut down about 1 billion years ago.

The article suggests that the Chang’e 6 samples represent an indication of a hitherto unsuspected resurgence of the dynamo’s power, and speculates on the possibility that the Moon somehow found extra energy. This hypothesis challenges the prevailing view of a long decline to the current senescent state of Earth’s only permanent natural satellite.

The samples recovered by Chang’e 6 were the first from the far side of the Moon, but the probe brought home just under 2 kg of material. Without a doubt, there is still much to learn before we close the book on lunar history.

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The American program Artemis aims to add some chapters, and its ability to do so has advanced this week with the news that the upgraded launch control software for the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft has successfully passed a test. Everything went well, which means that the Artemis II mission has already passed six of the eight planned ground tests.