Dear MEL Topic Readers,
China's Chang'e-5 mission returns Moon samples
It was 1959 when the first human-made object by the Soviet Union hit the moon. A decade later, American spaceflight landed humans on the moon and brought samples home. Another decade later, the Soviet Union achieved the first unmanned lunar soil sample return in 1970. Indeed, the moon had been a hot spot in space in the cold war era. Later, both archrivals changed their focus from space to Earth to deal with domestic and border issues. When the new millennium began, people’s eyes shifted to our neighboring red planet as new technologies emerged to realize more explanatory missions and even future colonization. Recently, however, the moon attracted more attention from astronomers and enterprises. China had landed an unmanned probe on the moon, collected samples, and brought them back home successfully on December 16. Unlike Japan’s Hayabusa-2 mission that took years, China’s moon mission took only about two weeks. The collected samples are believed to be two billion years newer than the ones that had been brought back by the US and Soviet missions. It is expected to provide more clues about how the moon is constructed internally.
When will China celebrate the lunar new year on the moon?
Enjoy reading the article and learn about another milestone achievement of Chinese science and technology.
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