China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe has successfully returned to earth with the first rock and soil samples ever collected from the far side of the moon. The re-entry capsule containing the samples — believed to be up to 2.5 million years old— landed in China’s Inner Mongolia region on Tuesday, marking a major victory for the country’s space program.
The mission, launched on May 3, marked China’s second attempt at landing on the moon’s far side and its fourth successful lunar mission. The unmanned probe remained in space for 53 days, collecting samples from the South Pole-Aitken Basin—a massive impact crater formed more than 4 billion years ago when Earth was still in its infancy.
The far side of the moon, whose surface has never been explored, is known to have large mountains and deep craters compared to the relative flatness of the near-side. The samples scientists are expecting will likely come from different layers of the basin, which will bear traces of the different geological events across its long cosmic history, such as when the moon was younger and had an active core that produced volcanic rock.
The mission is part of a growing rivalry with the US—still the leader in space exploration—and other nations, including Japan and India. It comes at a time when China has put its own space station in orbit and regularly sends crews there. In recent years, China has sent multiple successful missions to the moon, collecting samples from the moon’s near side with the Chang’e 5 probe.
China’s leader Xi Jinping congratulated the Chang’e team, saying the mission was a “landmark achievement in our country’s efforts at becoming a space and technological power.
