A European experiment aboard China’s Chang’e 6 mission has recorded previously undetected charged particles on the moon’s surface. A catalog of these will allow astronomers to better investigate the chemical composition of the moon’s regolith.
These particles, which are essentially gases generated by sunlight, were detected at the landing site of the Chang’e-6 spacecraft in the southern pocket of the Apollo Crater, which lies in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon. The ion detector was the first European Space Agency instrument to land on the moon.
“This was ESA’s first surface activity the moona world first in science and a first lunar collaboration with China,” said Neil Melville, ESA technical officer for the experiment, in a statement rack. “We have collected a quantity and quality of data that far exceeds our expectations.”
While Soil is protected from solar storms thanks to its magnetic field, which repels and traps charged particles from the sun, the moon lacks its own magnetic field. Gases in the increasingly thinner atmosphere – including helium, ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide – are therefore easily ionized by sunlight and ‘picked up’ by flowing plasma. These charged particles convey information about the chemical composition of the moon’s regolith, where the gases come from through various processes taking place on the surface, including small particle impacts. asteroids.
Related: Watch China’s Chang’e 6 probe land on the far side of the moon in dramatic video
In 2012 a NASA lunar mission called ARTEMIS (short for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun and not to be confused with the agency’s modern Artemis moon program) observed pick-up ions floats 12,400 miles (20,000 kilometers) above the moon’s surface. They were all positive ions, meaning they contained more protons than electrons. Negative ions have a short lifespan and do not float far from the surface. That’s why they were never detected before the Chang’e-6 experiment, scientists say.
Scientists have yet to estimate the number of negative ions floating near the moon’s surface, a number that would impact how the moon interacts with the sunaccording to the Swedish Institute for Space Physicswho built the ion detector called Negative Ions at the Lunar Surface (NILS).
NILS began operating almost five hours after the spacecraft landed on the moon on June 1. It operated intermittently during the two-day mission, experiencing low voltages, communications disruptions and power restarts, ESA said. The detector collected a total of three hours of data: three times the amount needed to consider the experiment a success.
“We alternated between short bursts of full power and long cool-down periods as the instrument was warming up,” Melville said in the statement. “The fact that it remained within thermal design limits and managed to recover under extremely warm conditions is a testament to the quality of the work of the Swedish Institute for Space Physics.”
In addition to the NILS experiment, the Chang’e 6 mission drilled the moon’s surface and scooped up about 2,000 grams of material. Scientists say these samples, the first ever collected from the far side of the moon, could provide new insights into the formation and evolution of the moon and moon. solar system.
After sample collection was completed, the robotic lander placed a wooden model of China’s red five-star flag on the surface before lifting off and rendezvousing with a waiting spacecraft in orbit.
Starting Wednesday (June 12), the samples will continue to orbit the moon in Chang’e 6’s reentry module, waiting for the right time to kick-start his journey back to Earth. The return capsule is expected to arrive at the Siziwang Banner in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on June 25.