China’s robotic spacecraft has brought back rocks and dust from the lunar far side that may solve enduring mysteries about the interior composition of the moon.
The uncrewed Chang’e-6 mission capsule landed in northern China’s Inner Mongolia at 2:07 p.m. Beijing Time on Tuesday, according to China’s State Council Information Office. Its journey to the moon about 250,000 miles away had lasted over 50 days.
Though Apollo 8 astronauts were the first people to see the far side with their own eyes from a spacecraft — with William Anders describing it as a kids’ sand pile — NASA has never landed there. This is the first time in history anyone has returned samples from the portion of the moon facing away from Earth.
That’s in part because of how difficult it is. The moon itself blocks communication between people on Earth and the far side. But China put a communication relay satellite about 40,000 miles beyond the moon that could exchange the signals.
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