New Kind of Moon Rock Found by Chinese

  There’s still a lot to learn about our closest neighbour. China’s Yutu moon rover has discovered a new kind of rock on the lunar surface. The find suggests the moon’s make-up is more diverse than previously thought, and will help interpret future satellite-based observations.

China’s Chang’e 3 lander mission touched down on the moon in December 2013 and released the Yutu rover to explore the edge of a nearby crater, which was nicknamed “Purple Palace” at the time but is now formally known as Zi Wei.

The landing site was in the Mare Imbrium, a large area on the moon’s northern hemisphere thought to have been formed around 3 billion years ago when lava flooded a giant crater. The more recent impact that formed the Zi Wei crater in the Mare Imbrium exposed the ancient basalt rock that formed when the lava cooled, so sampling here allowed Yutu to look deep back in time.


Zongcheng Ling of Shandong University in Weihai, China, and his colleagues analysed data the rover collected on the basalt and found that concentrations of minerals including iron oxide, calcium oxide and titanium dioxide differ from those seen in the samples gathered by the Apollo astronauts and the Russian Luna probes in the 1970s.

That suggests Yutu had struck a new kind of moon rock, says Ling. “It is clear that these newly characterised basalts reflect a more diverse moon than initially realised at the time of the Apollo and Luna missions.”

Ling expects to make further discoveries as the rover continues to analyse its surroundings, he says. “Yutu is still acquiring data, although it cannot move around now.” The Chang’e 3 lander is also still operational, scanning the lunar surface and using the only telescope on the moon to give us unique views of the cosmos.

Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9880

Image credit: Chinese Lunar