New kind of moon rock found by Chinese Yutu rover

December 22, 2015 (EIRNS)-In an article printed today in Nature Communications, scientists who have been analyzing data returned by China’s Yutu rover report that the basalt rock where Yutu landed, which was brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions, is chemically very distinct from the samples from the Moon returned by the Apollo astronauts, and the Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna spacecraft in the 1970s. “Future Chinese lunar missions like Chang’e-4 and Chang’e-5 will definitely help to [solve] these mysteries”. “Probably in combination with other lunar datasets, lunar meteorites studies and chemical modelling methods, we can better understand the petrogenisis history of these unique young lunar basalts”.

Additionally, the Apollo and Luna basalts were either high or low in their titanium content. Yutu, via the alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer and the near-infrared hyperspectral imager, revealed the basalts it sampled were intermediate in titanium content, and rich in iron. Yutu is exploring a crater in the northern part of the Imbrium basin, an ancient floodplain thought to have been formed by lava some 3 billion years ago.

However the regolith layer analyzed by the Chinese rover was thin and resembled the composition of the underlying volcanic bedrock. This characteristic made the landing site an ideal location to compare in situ analysis with compositional information detected by orbiting satellites.

Some 40 years ago, those United States and Russian missions also found basalt on the surface of the moon.

Essentially, The Guardian explained, minerals in molten rock tend to crystalize at different temperatures, thus the newly found moon rock provides some insight into the deep interior of the moon.

“The variable titanium distribution on the lunar surface suggests that the Moon’s interior was not homogenised”, Prof Joliff said. The mission incorporated a robotic lander and a lunar rover Yutu.

The new samples’ intermediate titanium concentrations, however, are a bit wacky.

The moon is believed to have formed when a Mars-sized body called Theia crashed into Earth early in the history of the solar system. “We’re still trying to figure out how this happened”. “One way to do that would be to mix, or hybridize, two different sources”, he said.

The scientists hypothesize that when the moon’s magma ocean crystallized, iron-rich pyroxene and ilmenite, “which formed late and at the crust-mantle boundary, might have begun to sink, and early-formed magnesium-rich olivine might have begun to rise”, according to Washington Univ. “As this occurred, the two minerals might have mixed and hybridized”. When volcanic activity flares up, you get basaltic outflows that are titanium oxide enriched (up to 15 per cent by weight).

Meanwhile, China is planning to be the first country to land a lunar probe on the far side of the moon, or “dark side of the moon”, which is never visible to Earth.

There are relatively few missions that have directly sampled the lunar dirt, so having another data point can add to our understanding of the moon, Petro said.