Is the Apollo manned lunar landing program implemented by the United States in the 60s of the last century real? For a long time, many people on the Internet questioned the authenticity of the Apollo manned moon landing, after all, it was not long after human beings entered the space age, and the difficulty of sending astronauts to the moon and then safely returning to Earth was beyond our imagination. Even in the 21st century, it is difficult for the United States to return to the moon. Especially after our Chang'e-5 probe went to the moon to take samples and return to Earth, the voice questioning the authenticity of Apollo came again.
For example, our Chang'e-5 probe brought back some helium-3 in the samples, and even found the moon's reservoir, and the United States 6 manned lunar landings that year, once brought back up to 382 kilograms of lunar samples from the moon, why not find the moon water exists? Could it be that the Apollo manned moon landing was fake?
The question of whether the moon has water or not has puzzled scientists for many years. It stands to reason that the moon, as a planet without an atmosphere, is directly bombarded by the solar wind all year round, and the daytime temperature on the surface of the moon is as high as about 150 °C. However, scientists believe that there may be water ice material in the polar regions of the moon, because there are a large number of impact craters at the two poles of the moon, those impact craters have no sunlight, have been in a permanent shadow area, the temperature is very low, and it is in an extremely cold state of about -170 ° C all year round, where there is likely to be some water ice material.
Therefore, the polar regions of the moon have now become the focus of attention of many countries, and many countries have expressed their desire to go to the south pole of the moon to find water resources. For example, our Chang'e-7 probe went to the south pole of the moon, and the goal is to find water resources. And our Chang'e-5 probe has actually confirmed the existence of water on the moon, and more than once.
Chang'e-5 carried the Lunar Mineral Spectrum Analyzer, a device that obtains the water content under in-situ conditions on the lunar surface, and about 120 grams of water is present in 1 ton of lunar soil. However, the water found by this instrument is not the water we use every day, but refers to the water molecules or hydroxyl groups in the minerals in the lunar sample. So, the Lunar Mineral Spectrum Analyzer found water in the moon that needed to be processed to be converted into liquid water.
Now our Chang'e-5 has produced results again, which is also related to water, and the relevant research has been published in the international academic journal "Nature Geoscience". In this way, when scientists studied the samples brought back by the Chang'e-5 probe, they found that there was water in the lunar impact glass beads, and after measuring the water content in the center and edge of these glass beads, scientists found that the water content in these glass beads gradually decreased from the edge to the center. Scientists believe that hydrogen atoms from the solar wind should enter these glass beads, then diffuse in these glass beads and preserve them.
In the study, the researchers also measured the water content in these glass beads and found that the water content of these glass beads reached 0.05%, which means that 1 ton of glass beads contains 0.5 kilograms of water, and in the lunar soil on the lunar surface, the storage of water can be as high as 270 billion tons. Of course, the water in these glass beads is also not water that we can use directly, but exists in the form of hydrogen atoms.
Our Chang'e-5 probe has repeatedly found water on the moon, which has to make people question the authenticity of the Apollo manned lunar landing. You know, in the 60s and 70s of the last century, the United States has implemented many manned lunar landing programs, 6 batches of 12 astronauts left footprints on the lunar surface, and brought back more than 380 kilograms of lunar samples from the moon. The United States brought back so many lunar samples, and did not publicly claim to have found lunar water, and some instruments left on the lunar surface at that time did not find lunar water. And our Chang'e-5 probe brought back less than 2 kilograms of lunar samples and found water. Could it be that the lunar samples brought back by the United States are fake?
First of all, the Apollo manned moon landing was indeed real, and scientists also gave an explanation. No water was found in the samples brought back by Apollo that year, possibly because the landing site of the Apollo lunar spacecraft was different from the landing site of the Chang'e-5 probe, and the water distribution of the moon was not uniform, there may be water in some areas, and there may be no water in some areas, or the water content is relatively low.
For example, the landing site of the Apollo spacecraft is located in the "lunar sea", which is a relatively low-lying plain area on the lunar surface, which is an ancient area of the lunar surface, where not a drop of water exists, so there is no water in the samples brought back by astronauts during the Apollo moon landing.
The landing site of our Chang'e-5 probe is located in a relatively young region of the lunar surface, and the samples collected are relatively young, only about 2 billion years old, and the lunar soil here still contains relatively little water. By comparison, the samples brought back by Apollo astronauts were as young as 3.1 billion years old, and some were even more than 4.4 billion years old.
Another interesting thing is that the United States went to the moon to bring back more than 380 kilograms of samples, but it was still staring at the samples of our Chang'e-5 probe. For example, NASA administrators have repeatedly asked us to share the results of Chang'e-5, including sharing samples from the Chang'e-5 probe as the United States shared the Apollo sample. In other words, NASA director wants us to give them some samples brought back by the Chang'e-5 probe.
It is undeniable that the United States shared 1 gram of lunar rock samples with us, and after our scientists got this sample, we studied some of them and achieved a lot of results, which also helped us to explore the moon later. But whether we should share some samples with the United States needs to be considered in many ways. You know, the United States itself has enacted legislation to prohibit space-related exchanges with China, so how to communicate lunar samples is a big problem!