New analysis reveals first detailed information about moon’s far side [Video]

The moon has some new stories to tell.Scientists have published the first detailed analyses of the historic cache of lunar soil and rock that China retrieved from the far side of the moon this year.Chang’e-6, the first mission to bring back soil from the moon’s far side, collected 1.9 kilograms (4.2 pounds) of lunar soil via a robotic probe in June before returning to Earth, a scientific tour de force that cemented China’s place as one of the world’s top space powers.Volcanic rock contained in the sample dates back 2.8 billion years, suggesting the uncrewed mission’s landing site was volcanically active at that time, according to two papers published Friday in the journals Science and Nature. The eruption represented a relatively recent episode of lunar volcanic activity not known from the study of samples taken from the moon’s near side by NASA’s Apollo program and Russia’s Luna missions, the new …