EXPLAINED – what a strange substance could be found on the dark side of the moon
(ORDO NEWS) — Last year, a Chinese lunar rover discovered a strange “gel-like” substance on the dark side of the moon. It turned out that these are molten pieces of lunar rock, according to the Space.com.
So the analysis of the find made by a group of Chinese scientists, and its results, disappointed. The substance was discovered by the Yutu lunar rover last year.
Chang’e 4 – it was this spaceship that became the first to land on the far side of the moon to the Earth. A lunar probe from China landed on the little-studied part of the Earth’s satellite on January 3, 2019.
After that, in September of the same year, Chinese scientists said that their spacecraft came across a “gel-like” substance of a strange color. Unusual material was found at the bottom of the impact crater.
As recently became known, Chinese scientists have confirmed their assumptions. The size of the material is 20 by 6 centimeters, and it arose as a result of the melting of matter due to meteor strikes or volcanic eruptions. Outwardly, this substance looks greenish, glassy. Scientists also noted that this material is similar to the samples that returned to Earth after NASA‘s Apollo 15 and 17 missions.
And although the basis for the assumption of specialists is the data recorded by Yutu 2 panoramic cameras and the instrument of the visible and near infrared spectrometer of the lunar rover (VNIS), there can be no absolute confidence in the research results. It is impossible to make an accurate study and analysis of this substance due to poor lighting on the far side of the moon to the Earth.
According to a NASA program employee at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Dan Moriarty, scientists were not able to get samples from this region that could help determine the parameters of the substance, which does not allow an analysis of the composition of the regolith. Therefore, as the specialist pointed out, the above data may not be entirely accurate.
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