NASA
The hidden side of the Moon photographed by the American Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft probe.
SPACE – The race to the Moon continues and China is preparing to once again send a probe to the far side of the Moon. But unlike the Chang’e 4 mission in 2019, which simply landed on the hidden side of our natural satellite, Chang’e 6 aims to bring us back samples of this mysterious place. A first in our space history.
The Chang’e 6 probe is scheduled to take off on May 3 from the Wenchang space center, located on the island of Hainan in China. A mission which will be carried out thanks to the powerful Longue March 5 rocket which has already transported the Chang’e 5 probe to the Moon. The journey to our natural satellite should then take about a month before Chang’e 6 lands on the South Pole-Aitken basin at Apollo crater.
A deliberately chosen location, because it is in this 2500 km diameter basin that is one of the places where the thickness of the lunar crust is thinnest. “The asteroid that created this basin pierced the crust and reached the Moon’s mantle. We could therefore bring back samples, which is unattainable on Earth, because the continental crust of the Earth’s mantle is 35 km thick.explains to HuffPost Francis Rocard, astrophysicist and head of solar system exploration at the National Center for Space Studies (CNES). “Is the composition of the hidden side identical to the visible side? This is something that still remains unknown today” he weighs in the balance.
An almost unexplored hidden side
If the hidden side of the Moon still remains a mystery to us, it is because there have been very few exploration missions. It has certainly been studied and mapped thanks to probes which flew over it, as you can see in the image below:
NASA
Topography of the visible and far sides of the Moon
However, it was not until 2019 and the Chinese Chang’e 4 mission that a machine landed there for the very first time. A way for Beijing to show its capabilities against other major space powers.
“ China has chosen to take an interest in the hidden side of the Earth to in turn accomplish a “first” which will arouse universal interest with the return of samples. Indeed, geological knowledge on the Moon and its formation owes a lot to the samples brought back mainly by the American “Apollo” missions, but also the Soviet “Luna”, which all come from the visible side.specifies Isabelle Sourbès-Verger, geographer and research director at the CNRS, specializing in space policies.
Once it lands, the Chang’e 6 will have only 48 hours on the lunar surface to collect samples before taking off again for Earth. If all goes well, the mission is expected to last 53 days, so the probe should return to our planet by mid-June.
Also see on HuffPost :
Reading this content may result in cookies being placed by the third-party operator who hosts it. Taking into account the choices you have expressed regarding the deposit of cookies, we have blocked the display of this content. If you wish to access it, you must accept the “Third Party Content” category of cookies by clicking on the button below.
Play Video
