Scientists have uncovered billions of years of lunar history, thanks to China s space program. The Chang e-4 lander, part of the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), made history in 2018 as the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon.
Since its landing, Chang e-4 has been capturing images of impact craters and extracting mineral samples, offering new insights into the moon's surface structures up to 1,000 feet deep.
Among these layers is a crater formed by a significant impact, according to Jianqing Feng, an astrogeological researcher at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.
Below this, researchers discovered five distinct layers of lunar lava that spread across the surface billions of years ago.
Experts believe the moon formed 4.51 billion years ago when a Mars-sized object collided with Earth, breaking off a chunk. For the next 200 million years, the moon was bombarded by space debris, causing numerous surface cracks.
Molten magma from the moon's mantle infiltrated these cracks due to volcanic eruptions, but the volcanic rock layers thinned closer to the surface, indicating the moon's gradual cooling and diminishing volcanic activity.
Volcanic activity on the moon ceased between a billion and 100 million years ago, rendering it geologically inactive. However, Feng and his co-authors suggest there might still be magma buried deep beneath the lunar surface.
Chang e-4 continues its mission, with researchers hopeful that this marks the beginning of groundbreaking lunar mapping efforts.