Geological context of the Chang'e-6 landing area and implications for sample analysis.

Research on returned samples can provide ground truth for the study of the geological evolution history of the Moon. However, previous missions all collected samples from the near side of the Moon, which is significantly different from the far side of the Moon in terms of the thickness of the lunar crust, magma activity, and composition. Therefore, the samples from the far side of the Moon are of great significance for a comprehensive understanding of the history of the Moon. China's Chang'e-6 (CE-6) probe has successfully landed on the lunar far side and will return samples in the coming days. With the precise location of the CE-6 landing site, a detailed analysis of the geological background is conducted in this research. The landing site of CE-6 is within the Apollo crater, which is inside the largest impact basin on the Moon, i.e., the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin. According to the numerical simulation of the formation process of the SPA basin, CE-6 landed at the edge of the SPA impact melting zone, which is presumably composed of impact melt of the lunar mantle. The Apollo crater subsequently excavated deep material again, which constitutes the basement of the CE-6 landing area. Later, erupted basalt covered these basement rocks, and they also constitute the main source of the CE-6 samples. Based on the dating method of crater size-frequency distribution, we find that the basalt is ∼2.50 Ga. The CE-6 samples also possibly contain basement rocks as excavated and ejected by craters, and they can provide crucial information for our understanding of lunar geological history along with the basalt samples.

Yue Z ，Gou S ，Sun S ，Yang W ，Chen Y ，Wang Y ，Lin H ，Di K ，Lin Y ，Li X ，Wu F ... -  《-》

Chang'E-4 initial spectroscopic identification of lunar far-side mantle-derived materials.

Li C ，Liu D ，Liu B ，Ren X ，Liu J ，He Z ，Zuo W ，Zeng X ，Xu R ，Tan X ，Zhang X ，Chen W ，Shu R ，Wen W ，Su Y ，Zhang H ，Ouyang Z ... -  《-》

China's lunar and deep space exploration: touching the moon and exploring the universe.

The Chinese lunar probe Chang'e-4 (CE-4) landed in the Von Kármán crater within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin on the far-side of the Moon on 3 January 2019. Following this, the moon rover Yutu-2 separated from the CE-4 lander and started its travels and exploration on the far-side of the Moon. Before this landing, humans had remotely observed the far-side of the Moon with lunar satellites. However, it was the first time that a man-made spacecraft had landed there and actually left behind wheel prints belonging to humanity. Since China's Lunar Exploration Project (CLEP), or Chang'e Project, started in 2004, China has accomplished the first two steps of its three-step plan of 'Orbiting, Landing and Returning'. CE-3 and CE-4 landed successfully on the near-side and far-side of the Moon, respectively. In the near future, CE-5 will land again on the near-side of the Moon and take lunar rock and soil samples back to Earth, thus completing the three-step plan of CLEP. In April 2019, National Science Review (NSR) interviewed three key figures of CLEP: CLEP Chief Engineer Weiren Wu (), the first CLEP Chief Scientist and CLEP senior consultant Ziyuan Ouyang (), and CLEP third phase Vice-Chief Engineer, CE-4 Ground Research and Application System Director Chunlai Li (). They talked about the scientific expectations and future plans of China's lunar and deep space exploration.

Zhao W ，Wang C 《-》

Density Structure of the Von Kármán Crater in the Northwestern South Pole-Aitken Basin: Initial Subsurface Interpretation of the Chang'E-4 Landing Site Region.

Chisenga C ，Yan J ，Zhao J ，Deng Q ，Barriot JP ... -  《SENSORS》

Mineral chemistry and 3D tomography of a Chang'E 5 high-Ti basalt: implication for the lunar thermal evolution history.

In December 2020, Chang'E-5 (CE-5), China's first lunar sample return mission, successfully collected samples totaling 1731 g from the northern Oceanus Procellarum. The landing site was located in a young mare plain, a great distance from those of Apollo and Luna missions. These young mare basalts bear critical scientific significance as they could shed light on the nature of the lunar interior (composition and structure) as well as the recent volcanism on the Moon. In this article, we investigated a CE-5 basalt sample (CE5C0000YJYX065) using a combination of state-of-art techniques, including high resolution X-ray tomographic microscopy (HR-XTM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS)-based scanning electron microscope (SEM), and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) to reveal its 3D petrology and minerology. Our results show that this sample has a fine- to medium-grained subophitic texture, with sparse olivine phenocrysts setting in the groundmass of pyroxene, plagioclase, ilmenite and trace amounts of other phases. It has an extremely high ilmenite modal abundance (17.8 vol%) and contains a significant amount (0.5 vol%) of Ca-phosphate grains. The mineral chemistry is in excellent agreement with that of Apollo and Luna high-Ti basalts. The major phase pyroxenes also display strong chemical zoning with compositions following the trends observed in Apollo high-Ti basalts. Based on current data, we came to the conclusion that CE5C0000YJYX065 is a high-Ti mare basalt with a rare earth element (REE) enriched signature. This provides a rigid ground-truth for the geological context at the CE-5 landing site and clarifies the ambiguity inferred from remote sensing surveys.

Jiang Y ，Li Y ，Liao S ，Yin Z ，Hsu W ... -  《-》