tianfu new vision丨during the mid-autumn festival, let’s go to the moon to “eat dirt”
2024-09-16
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it is common to watch the moon and eat mooncakes during the mid-autumn festival, but did you know that lunar soil is now a "high-tech delicacy"!from armstrong's footprints on the moon to chang'e 5 and chang'e 6 bringing back lunar "local specialties", the mysterious door of the moon is being opened. the lunar soil discovered by my country's "lunar exploration project" contains the secrets of the "guanghan palace", which makes scientists yearn for it.fortunately, sichuan also got a small share of this "local specialty" from the moon!
super moon photo from sichuan news
lunar soil is a precious witness that reveals the mysteries of the universe. even if it is half the size of a soybean, the shock and influence it brings are enormous.
this year, the lunar exploration and space engineering center (lunar sample management office) of the national space administration organized the "borrowing application review meeting" for the 7th batch of lunar scientific research samples, and distributed 8293.5 mg of lunar soil samples to 13 scientific research institutions, including chengdu university of technology. the team of associate researcher pang runlian from the international research center for planetary sciences of the school of earth and planetary sciences of the university was approved for 3 chang'e 5 lunar return samples, including a 17 mg lunar soil powder optical sheet and two 50 mg lunar soils, totaling 117 mg. this is the third time that chengdu university of technology has been approved for chang'e 5 lunar soil samples. at present, the research team has achieved good scientific research results in the research of various meteorites including lunar meteorites and lunar return samples, numerical simulation of the origin and evolution of the moon, and interpretation of remote sensing detection data of mars tianwen-1.
three copies of the seventh batch of chang'e 5 lunar samples approved by chengdu university of technology. photo courtesy of the wechat official account of chengdu university of technology
the tiny 50 mg of lunar soil contains the chinese people’s thousand-year-old dream of flying into space.if the calculation is not so precise, 50 mg may be the weight of a pill; if we look back and calculate, the bumpy trajectory of yutu-2's lonely journey on the moon, breaking the 500-meter cumulative moving distance mark, requires 600 days; if we count from the myth of chang'e flying to the moon, the chinese people have dreamed of flying for thousands of years.
the “local specialties” from the moon contain inexhaustible scientific research resources.it can explore the formation and evolution of the moon, as well as the relationship between the moon and other celestial bodies such as the sun and the earth, and also find the rare resource - helium 3. according to the analysis of the data returned by the apollo moon landing program, the total amount of helium 3 resources on the moon has reached an astonishing 1 million to 5 million tons, while the proven helium 3 resources on earth are less than 500 kilograms.
the study of "priceless soil" will slowly unravel the mysteries of the moon. as of july 2024, the national space administration has distributed 7 batches of 85.48 grams of chang'e 5 lunar samples to 131 research teams in china, and produced more than 100 scientific papers, filling the gaps in lunar scientific knowledge in terms of basic physical properties, material composition, late volcanic activity, and space weathering and hydroxyl water on the lunar surface. many scientific research results have attracted global attention: by determining the formation age of lunar soil samples, the end of lunar volcanic activity was postponed by about 800 million years. chinese scientists also discovered the sixth new mineral on the moon for the first time, named "chang'e stone". on august 27, the scientific research team of the ningbo institute of materials, chinese academy of sciences announced the results of their research: using 1 ton of lunar soil to make water can provide 50 people with drinking water for one day.
the chinese people have never stopped exploring "the sky", especially the people of sichuan.
more than 2,100 years ago, a sichuanese who was "all-knowing" still influences every chinese person today. luoyang hong, a folk astronomer in the western han dynasty, created the "taichu calendar", which had a decisive impact on the structure of the chinese calendar; he also founded the hun tian theory and innovated the ancient chinese theory of "the origin of the universe".
in the 21st century, a sichuanese who flew into space twice is destined to go down in history. in the early morning of october 16, 2021, chengdu astronaut ye guangfu entered space on the shenzhou 13 manned spacecraft, starting his first space journey. on april 25, 2024, ye guangfu again carried out the shenzhou 18 manned flight mission and served as the commander. as of september 13, 2024, ye guangfu has been in orbit for a total of 324 days, setting a record.
the picture taken on may 28 at the beijing aerospace flight control center shows ye guangfu, an astronaut of the shenzhou 18, working outside the space station complex. photo by xinhua news agency reporter li jie
relaying between heaven and earth, scientists from sichuan took over the soil from the moon and started a new round of exploration.
pang runlian graduated with a ph.d. from nanjing university in 2019 and is a postdoctoral fellow at the institute of geochemistry, chinese academy of sciences. during her postdoctoral period, she participated in the research of the first batch of chang'e 5 lunar soil samples. pang runlian said that this time, facing the "local specialties" from the moon, they will conduct research on impact high-pressure minerals and impact evaporation and condensation effects, which are the current hotspots of related research. "the study of high-pressure minerals is of great significance to our understanding of collisions between celestial bodies and the composition and structure of deep planetary materials. if we make any discoveries, it will greatly broaden our understanding of natural materials."
landing on the moon is a great power's space dream built on chinese mythology."chang'e", "jade rabbit", "magpie bridge"... have emerged from yellowed paper and magnificent imagination, and have been integrated into the chinese astronauts' pursuit of "sky" that is both past and future and down-to-earth.
in 1991, chinese aerospace experts proposed to launch a lunar exploration project;
in 2000, my country published its first white paper on "china's spaceflight";
on january 23, 2004, china's lunar exploration project (also known as the chang'e project) was officially launched;
this year, the "chang'e project" celebrates its 20th anniversary.
from the launch of china's first lunar exploration satellite chang'e-1 at the xichang satellite launch center, to the soft landing of chang'e-3 and the first lunar rover yutu-1 in the northwest of the moon's mare imbrium, to the return of chang'e-5 and chang'e-6 digging up soil... orbiting, landing, and returning, the lunar exploration trilogy has written the dream of "reaching the moon in the ninth heaven."
“chang'e should regret stealing the elixir, as her heart is filled with the blue sky and the blue sea every night.” with the moon exploration family, “chang'e” is no longer alone.in 2020, chang'e-5 collected soil from the front side of the moon, marking the first time in 44 years that humans have obtained lunar samples. in june 2024, chang'e-6 will achieve the world's first return of samples from the back side of the moon.
on june 3, the "mobile camera" carried by chang'e 6 took a photo of the lander and ascender after autonomous movement and sent back the photo. according to the national space administration
what is the difference between the composition of the lunar soil and the earth's soil? what is the difference between the soil on the back of the moon and the soil on the front?hu hao, chief designer of the chang'e-6 mission, said that during the sampling process, it was found that the lunar soil on the front side was relatively fine and loose, while the back side was somewhat sticky and had lumps. studying the samples will help reveal the differences in the unique geological structure and material composition of the back side of the moon, and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the geological evolution history of the moon.
thanks to human exploration, the "mystery of the moon" is being solved.
