Lunar Rocks From China Mission Show Moon Volcanically Active Recently
NDTV
The first lunar rocks brought back to Earth in decades show the Moon was volcanically active more recently than previously thought, Chinese scientists said Tuesday.
The first lunar rocks brought back to Earth in decades show the Moon was volcanically active more recently than previously thought, Chinese scientists said Tuesday.
A Chinese spacecraft carried lunar rocks and soil to Earth last year -- humanity's first mission in four decades to collect samples from the Moon, and a milestone for Beijing's growing space programme.
The samples included basalt -- a form of cooled lava -- from 2.03 billion years ago, scientists found, pushing the last known date of volcanic activity on the moon closer to the present day by as much as 900 million years.
Analysis of the samples "reveals that the Moon's interior was still evolving at around two billion years ago", the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said in a statement.
