Tuesday, December 1St., at 10:11 EST (07:00 PST) Chang’e-5 the spacecraft returning the sample landed safely on the moon. This mission is the latest in China’s lunar exploration program, which paves the way for the creation of a lunar outpost and a manned mission until the 2030s. The day after it landed, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) flew over. site and acquired an image of the lander.
The images above and below were captured by the LRO panoramic camera and show Chang’e-5 the location of the lander in a white box – the lander is represented by a white dot. They feature Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”), a large lunar mare located at the western edge of the nearby part of the Moon. Due to its size, measuring 2,500 km (1,600 mi) from north to south, it is the only mare that has been designated “Oceanus”.
Like any lunar moon, Oceanus Procellarum is a basaltic plain that formed when very fluid but thick lava flows covered the region. This is similar to the flood basalts on Earth, where lava flows expand to become almost flat as they solidify, but retain features that indicate their volcanic origin. But unlike the lava flows that are studied on Earth, Oceanus Procellarum formed 1 and 2 billion years ago.
Moreover, these samples could be billions of years younger than anything ever collected by Apollo astronauts or Soviet Moon missions. Therefore, they could shed light on the history and geological interior of the Moon. While the Moon is geologically inactive today, scientists know that the situation was different in the past. Not only did the moon have active volcanoes, but it is even believed to have had a lunar magnetic field.
In the image above, which covers a region with a diameter of 61 km (38 mi), a feature of the canal is visible. It corresponds to a narrow winding canal (aka. Rille), which was formed by a volcanic eruption more than a billion years ago. The bright southern area is a massif of older land that protrudes through the basalt layer of the mare.
In the second annotated image (directly above), the focus is on a much smaller region, measuring 1210 m (3970 ft) in diameter. In this image, the craters that form a triangular formation around the lander are more visible. Again, the location of the lander is indicated by a white box, while the lander is a white dot in the center.
On December 16, Chang’e-5 lander returned his samples to Earth in a 300 kg (~ 660 lbs) return capsule. This capsule, which contained 2 kg (4.4 lbs) of drilled and removed lunar material, landed in Inner Mongolia at 12:59 PM EST (09:59 AM PST). The recovery of this sample marks the end of the Chang’e-5 mission and Phase III of the Chinese Monthly Exploration Program.
Phase IV, which will lead to the construction of a monthly outpost, will begin in 2023-2024 with the launch Chang’e-6 and Chang’e-7 missions. If all goes well, China plans to send its first manned mission to the southern polar region of the moon by 2030.
Additional readings: LROC, SpaceNews