China’s spacecraft Chang’e 5 brought back a capsule from moon loaded with lunar dirt and gravel, weighing 1731 gms. The last time man brought moon rocks to earth was in 1976, achieved by Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission, which carried approx. 170 grams of lunar material. With this cargo, China has wrapped up its three step lunar exploration program of orbiting, landing and bringing back samples from moon, which was started in 2004. The new samples would provide fresh insight on geology and early history of Earth’s natural satellite. These samples are being carried to Beijing laboratory, from where they would be transferred to the Lunar Sample Laboratory at the National Astronomical Observatory (NAO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences- a facility built specifically for storage, processing and analysis of the samples. Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), declared Chang’e 5 a success and mentioned that they will carry out extensive cooperation with scientists of other countries in carrying out in-depth studies of the lunar soil.
