#精品长文创作季#
Since ancient times, Chang'e to the moon is the romantic yearning of the Chinese moon, and with the development of science and technology, we have also realized Chang'e to the moon.
In 2020, the Chang'e-5 probe successfully collected and returned 1,731 grams of lunar soil from the lunar surface. The success of China's Chang'e-5 mission is a big step forward for China's space flight, and various lunar data and lunar soil have become valuable data for the global scientific community.
Adhering to the principle that science knows no borders, the mainland intends to lend the samples retrieved by Chang'e-5 to other countries for research.
At the Chang'e-5 Lunar Soil International Loan Review Meeting, scientists from various countries gathered, including scientists from the United States. It's just that who the lunar soil is given is not as simple as it seems on the surface, what is going on?
1. Chang'e's run to the moon finally came true
Since China launched the Chang'e project in 2004, our lunar exploration program has been making steady progress, and it has become an important window to display our country's scientific and technological strength and space exploration capability.
The Chang'e project is like a wonderful movie script, taking us from the fantasy of the moon to the real journey of exploration. On October 24, 2007, the Chang'e-1 probe was successfully launched.
It is not only China's first satellite around the moon, but also helps us obtain detailed three-dimensional images of the lunar surface and the distribution of materials on its surface, which greatly improves the continent's lunar exploration capabilities.
The subsequent Chang'e-2 and Chang'e-3 missions continued to advance China's lunar exploration in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
Chang'e-2 not only completed the exploration around the moon, but also undertook the mission of deep space exploration, reaching a flight distance of hundreds of millions of kilometers. Chang'e-3 successfully achieved a soft landing on the moon, and China has become a scientific and technological power capable of landing on the moon.
In 2019, the Chang'e-4 mission once again put China at the forefront of the world. Not only did it land on the far side of the moon for the first time, but it also conducted a series of scientific experiments inside the von Kármán impact crater to explore the geological structure of the far side of the moon.
The Chang'e-5 mission on November 24, 2020 was key to China's lunar exploration program. Chang'e-5 successfully landed and started exploring.
The Chang'e-5 probe not only collected 1,731 grams of lunar soil, but also made scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery of a new mineral "Chang'e", and the study of lunar rock samples provided new data and research on the late magmatic activity of the moon.
In the process, China's lunar exploration program not only provides valuable data for global scientific research, but also promotes international scientific cooperation.
Chang'e's dream of going to the moon has come true, and our exploration continues. In the future, we will have more Chang'e probes flying into space to uncover more mysteries of the universe and explore the mysteries of the moon.
2. 1,731 grams of lunar soil collected by Chang'e-5
Did you know that China's Chang'e-5 probe has completed a mission that shocked the world, that is, it collected lunar soil from the moon for the first time and successfully brought it back to Earth.
This 1,731 grams of lunar soil, although it sounds like a small amount, contains endless mysteries of the universe, enough to make scientists crazy.
The reason why these lunar soils are so interesting is that they all come from the northeastern part of the lunar storm ocean, an entirely new region that has never been explored by humans. The area is far from the sampling sites of the American Apollo spacecraft and the Soviet unmanned lunar lander.
The northeastern part of the Lunar Storm Ocean is near the Lumke volcano, with a latitude and longitude of 51.916°W and 43.058°N. Compared to the sampling sites of previous Apollo spacecraft and Soviet unmanned lunar landers, it has higher latitudes and is characterized by younger lunar volcanism.
Compared with the lunar soil collected by previous Apollo missions, the Chang'e-5 sample has made a major breakthrough in terms of age and geological composition.
According to our scientists, this batch of lunar soil was formed 2.03 billion years ago, nearly 900 million years younger than the lunar samples brought back by Apollo.
This means that they record the geological evolution of the moon at a later stage, which means that this lunar soil may contain the geological secrets of the late moon.
In addition to the uniqueness of their age, the Chang'e-5 samples are also very different in terms of mineral composition. In addition to the major basalt clasts, a completely new phosphate mineral has been discovered for the first time, named "Chang'eite".
This is the first time that mankind has discovered this mineral on the surface of the moon, just like finding a brilliant gem on the moon, which has made a qualitative breakthrough in the study of lunar geology.
The 1,731 grams of lunar soil is more valuable than any previous lunar sample, both in terms of sampling site and material composition.
So when China announced its willingness to share the lunar soil with the international scientific community, scientists around the world expressed great interest.
The first meeting on the borrowing of lunar samples for the Chang'e-5 mission attracted scientists from all over the world.
A total of 10 foreign scientists, including those from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Pakistan and Japan, were evaluated for the loan of lunar soil, half of which were from the United States.
But can these American scientists really be able to borrow our lunar soil smoothly? This is not that we deliberately embarrass the United States, but there are many twists and turns.
3. The United States has inflicted its own problems
In view of the special nature of lunar soil, many American scientists have applied, but there is an awkward clause in the middle, that is, the "Wolf Clause".
In the 60s of the 20th century, the "Apollo" project of the U.S. lunar exploration program was officially established, with the goal of sending humans to the moon before 1970.
In 1961, the first successful launch of Mercury-Fortitude 1 was the first automatic orbital mission. In 1963, the Soviet Union's Luna-3 spacecraft took and sent back photos of the moon for the first time.
Since then, the United States has successively launched "Apollo 7" and "Apollo 8", achieving the first flight around the moon and the first lunar orbiting satellite.
On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 spacecraft successfully sailed to the moon, and Ames and Armstrong achieved the first human landing on the moon, marking the magnificent end of the US lunar exploration strategy.
Subsequently, the United States completed six manned lunar missions from Apollo 12 to Apollo 17, collecting a total of 381.7 kilograms of lunar samples.
During this glorious period, the United States reached its peak in lunar exploration technology, which also established its strong strength in the space competition.
However, since 2023, after the prevalence of AI, AI said that the US moon landing program may be fake, and even Putin said that it was really surprising that he was blowing Sting. But it is also enough to show the fierceness of the competition for space.
Let's have said that, as the space glory of the United States gradually passed, and then the development of the American lunar exploration program was blocked, compared with China and other countries, the advantage gradually weakened, and the United States began to play small tricks again.
In 2011, the U.S. Congress passed the infamous "Wolf Clause," which prohibits NASA from cooperating with China in the field of spaceflight, and the United States has begun to choke the mainland's space technology.
The Wolf Clause originated from a nonsensical incident in 2011. At that time, a Chinese scientist working in the United States was arrested while returning to China for transit, accused of carrying "a large amount of information technology that he may not have the right to control."
Later, no evidence was found, so it was said that the Chinese scientist had brought a "pornographic movie" through the customs and was arrested. It's outrageous, it's really outrageous, it's outrageous, it's outrageous.
However, American politicians took advantage of this to hype up the rumor that "China has stolen American technology", which eventually led to the passage of the "Wolf Clause".
Unable to work with China, the United States has lost important partners and data-sharing opportunities in lunar exploration, resulting in slow progress and rising costs for its lunar exploration program.
What's more, the Wolf Clause shows the narrow political thinking of American politicians and their fear of China's rise. They have tried to contain China's development by restricting cooperation, but they have ignored that China has always been a bridge to the water, and it has difficulties in the future.
Now, with the successful recovery of 1,731 grams of lunar samples from China's Chang'e-5 mission, the U.S. scientific community has shown great interest in these precious samples.
But interestingly, NASA has uncharacteristically shown openness to potential cooperation with China, and the five American scientists who applied to borrow Chinese lunar samples have a deep background, which has sparked much speculation.
The five scientists are Ryan Ziegler, the curator of NASA's Apollo mission samples. Stephen Paman, planetary scientist at Brown University, Timothy Groch at Stony Brook University, Stephen Sutton at the University of Chicago, and Michelle Thompson at Purdue University.
Notably, they all receive NASA research grants, and some of them even host large-scale NASA-funded multi-million dollar projects. Aren't they afraid of violating the Wolf Clause passed by the US Congress?
Under the Wolf Clause, it is nearly impossible for scientists receiving U.S. government funding to cooperate with China's space sector.
The actions of these five American scientists seem to imply that the United States acquiesces to a certain extent, and isn't this just a proper scoundrel? No one would have imagined that the clause that stuck our neck at the beginning would become a cage for the United States to cocoon itself.
Epilogue:
Human beings have never stopped exploring the vast universe. From the Apollo moon landing to the Chang'e lunar exploration, generations of scientists have used wisdom and courage to constantly expand the boundaries of human cognition.
However, in the face of the exploration of the universe, the United States has used various means to block Sino-US scientific and technological exchanges for many years, and the Wolf Clause is a typical representative.
Now the lunar soil they can't ask for is in China, but they can't let go of this knot in their hearts, and they suffer by themselves.
If the United States really wants to cooperate in science and technology, why did it introduce lockdown measures in 2011? China has always adhered to the principle of openness and inclusiveness, but the United States prefers to use paranoid political views to interfere in scientific and technological development, and this is the fundamental reason for the current situation.