Chinas Rover Finds Layers Of Surprise Under Moons Far Side
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Chang'e-4 launched in early December 2018, and made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3. The Yutu-2 rover had covered a total of 890 feet (271 meters) by the end of lunar day 8.
BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China's Yutu-2, the first rover on the far side of the moon, has found materials from deep inside the moon that could help unravel the mystery of the lunar mantle composition and the formation and evolution of the moon and the earth.
Using data obtained by the visible and near infrared spectrometer installed on Yutu-2, a research team led by Li Chunlai, with the National Astronomical Observatories of China under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found that the lunar soil in the landing area of the Chang'e-4 probe contains olivine and pyroxene which came from the lunar mantle deep inside the moon.
For years China has been working to establish itself as a world power. This includes space. In recent years, China has been launching satellites and space probes, including a few to the moon. For instance, two years ago a Chinese rover landed on the far side of the moon. On December 1, 2020, a Chinese spacecraft landed on the moon and two weeks later returned a 2-kilogram sample of lunar soil to the earth. This was the first lunar sample brought to earth since the Apollo program a half-century ago. China also sent a probe to Mars in July 2020. There is a narrow launch window to Mars every 26 months, so China took advantage of that opportunity to send a probe to Mars. But China was not alone: The United Arab Emirates sent a probe, as did the United States once again. The US Perseverance rover is accompanied by the Ingenuity helicopter and will explore Mars from low altitude, a first. These spacecrafts will not reach Mars until early 2021.
The moon has no global magnetic field like theEarth because it no longer has an internal dynamo, so it was a surprisewhen magnetometers placed by Apollo astronauts on the surface detecteda faint magnetic field, as large as hundreds of nanoteslas. When thescientists built an electron detector that flew in lunar orbit aboardApollo 15 in 1971 and Apollo 16 in 1972, they quickly realized theycould use the instrument to remotely map the magnetic fields on thesurface. Though crude and covering only about 10 percent of the lunarsurface, the measurements nevertheless indicated a correlation betweenmeteor impact basins -- dark, roughly circular features on the face ofthe moon and strong magnetic fields on the diametrically opposite sideof the moon.
The purpose of the SEP experiment was to obtain data about theelectromagnetic energy transmission, absorption, and reflectioncharacteristics of the lunar surface and subsurface for use in thedevelopment of a geological model of the upper layers of the moon. Thisexperiment determined layering, searched for pressure of water belowthe surface, and measured electrical properties in situ, determiningthese as a function of depth. The selected frequency range was chosento measure these properties in a range from a few meters to a fewkilometers depth. The transmitter produced continuous waves at 1, 2.4,4, 8.1, 16, and 32.1 MHz, successively. These waves permittedmeasurement of the size and number of scattered bodies in thesubsurface. Any moisture present was easily detected because minuteamounts of water in rocks or subsoil change the electrical conductivityby several orders of magnitude. The equipment for this experimentconsisted of a deployable self-contained transmitter, a multiplefrequency transmitter antenna, a portable receiver/recorder on theRover, a wide-bandwidth mutually orthogonal receiver antenna, and aretrievable data recording device. The crew transported and set up thetransmitter approximately 100 meters from the Lunar Module and thendeployed the antennas. The receiver/recorder was placed on the LunarRover. The crew established the location of the Rover in relation tothe transmitter for each data stop during the traverse. Wheel turnswere counted for distance, and differences between wheel turns on theright and left sides of the vehicle were used to compute azimuth. Therecorder was then returned to Earth. 153554b96e