On Monday, April 24, the Chinese space agency disclosed that it had given France and Russia small samples of lunar soil collected during the fifth mission of China’s Lunar Exploration Program in 2020. France was presented with 1.5 grams earlier this month, according to Guan Feng from the China National Space Administration (CNSA), as per the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
The CNSA reported on its website that Russian President Vladimir Putin was given 1.5 grams of lunar soil samples weighing during his visit to Beijing in February 2022 for “scientific research purposes.” In turn, during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russia earlier this year, he was given 1.5 grams of lunar soil collected by the first Soviet probe, the Luna-16 in 1970, to perform a sample return mission to the Moon, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
Guan made the announcement while addressing an audience during the opening ceremony of this year’s Space Day of China in Hefei on April 24.
Additionally, a similar amount of lunar soil was presented to French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Beijing earlier this month.
French geologist Thomas Smith at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing stated that this is “proof of the strong friendship and partnership between our two countries” in reference to the gift from China to France, according to the SCMP. Smith was the first foreign national to receive samples collected during the Chinese mission. The geologist also noted that the samples collected during the Chinese mission in 2020 were the first ones since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Apollo and the Soviet Luna missions. According to Smith, they represent the youngest-ever lunar soils brought back to Earth and are of high scientific value, providing insights into the events that occurred late in the moon’s history.
The CNSA launched its fifth mission of China’s Lunar Exploration Programme called Chang’e 5 in 2020, which collected a total of 1,731g of lunar samples around 23 days later. After the samples, which are said to be around two billion years old, reached Earth, the CNSA announced that lunar soil analysis would be conducted with international cooperation.
The recent findings based on the samples collected during the 2020 mission indicated that the moon still had active volcanoes two billion years ago, which is more recent than previously believed. The Apollo and Luna rocks are said to be somewhere between three and 4.4 billion years old. At present, researchers in China as well as several other countries, including Australia, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, are analyzing the lunar samples collected.
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