As early as December 17, 2020, China brought back some 1.731 kilograms of lunar samples from the lunar surface, the main ingredients of the samples are lunar soil and rocks, and the return of these materials is the lunar probe launched by China last year - "Chang'e 5". Chang'e 5 is China's first unmanned lunar surface sampling return spacecraft, but also marks China's aerospace technology and unmanned AI technology is a step closer, even the United States that has landed on the moon, is very envious of the technology carried by Chang'e 5 and the 1.731 kg of soil and rock brought back this time.
After more than 10 months of research and analysis, the lunar soil samples brought back by Chang'e 5 have revealed for the first time that the moon has changed from a fireball to the appearance of the moon we see today. And the ore brought back this time is still very rare on the earth, the average value of a pound is as high as 280 million yuan, and at this time the United States is envious, and hopes that China can give them a little lunar soil to do research. Here I'm sure everyone is as curious as I am, why is the value of the moon's soil so high? What is the charm of these rare ores?
In the past, China's aerospace technology was not as developed as it is now, but the United States and the Soviet Union, two countries, have collected lunar soil and rocks from the moon. In the Apollo program in the 1960s, astronauts brought back 380 kilograms of lunar rock six times. The Soviet Union also brought back 301 grams of lunar rocks from the moon in the 1970s, so the Soviet Union and the United States have very precious lunar rocks.
Since then, scientists from both countries have studied these lunar rocks, and they have carefully studied them and found that the age of these lunar rocks is about 3 billion years old, and even the oldest lunar rock has reached 4.4 billion years old, and the results of the study of these rocks also indirectly show that the moon is at least 4.4 billion years old today, which is very meaningful for scientific research.
And the Earth we live on, scientists have found the oldest rock on the Earth, the oldest is only 4.3 billion years old, so scientists know that the age of the Earth and the Moon may be about the same age, or it may be born at the same time, so there is a hypothesis that the Moon is part of the Earth. Scientists speculate that about 4.6 billion years ago, a meteorite hit the Earth, causing part of the Earth to fall off, and then after a long period of evolution, it formed the "Moon". So the question is, how do scientists measure the age of the rocks?
In the early 20th century, an ordinary physicist "Rutherford" inadvertently proposed an important law - "decay law", and this law is about the number of decays of radioactive elements, that is, this law directly made Rutherford's life after him, becoming a famous physicist.
In the time that followed, the age of celestial bodies in the universe could be measured according to this law, because under this law, many radioactive elements would be firmly locked in the microscopic structure of the rocks, and at the moment when these rocks were formed, these radioactive elements would stay directly inside and could not come out. These radioactive elements will decay periodically, and these decays are equivalent to installing a clock in the stone, just according to the decay period of these radioactive elements, to calculate the approximate age of the rock.
And the moon soil and rocks brought back by Chang'e 5 this time, when examining the decay of radioactive elements, found that the radioactive elements of the rocks, and did not have too many decays like the rocks brought back by the United States and the Soviet Union, and Chinese scientists found that the rocks brought back this time were only about 2 billion years old. That is to say, the rocks in this area (the storm ocean area) where Chang'e 5 landed were formed only 2 billion years ago.
Scientists have made a speculation based on the results of this study, that is, as early as 2 billion years ago, there are still many places on the moon that have not completely cooled down, and even at that time, there are many places on the moon, there are magma flowing out, as for why the surface of the moon 2 billion years ago, there are still some places that have not cooled down, and scientists have not been able to solve this unsolved mystery. Among the rocks brought back by Chang'e 5 this time, not only do they contain the evolutionary history of the moon, but also contain very valuable minerals, of which the two mineral resources with the most in the lunar soil are titanium and helium-3.
"Titanium" has a very good corrosion resistance, it is the highest level of mineral among metals, mainly used in the aerospace field and navigation field. These titanium can be used by humans for hundreds of years, can create a very large aircraft carrier or spaceship, so as long as humans collect enough "titanium", then it can be used to build spaceships, and then directly drive to the moon to mine more ore and "titanium".
There are about 2 million tons of helium-3 on the lunar surface, a resource that is a key material for controlled nuclear fusion. The nuclear fusion reactions currently in hand are produced by tritium (chuan) and deuterium (dao), and this fusion will produce neutron flow radiation problems in the process and will also lose some energy, so the current nuclear fusion reaction is not very perfect.
But as long as you have helium-3, scientists can develop controlled nuclear fusion, will not produce neutron flow radiation problems, do not have to worry about nuclear leakage accidents, etc., so controlled nuclear fusion is the main direction of human future development. And only 100 tons of helium-3 can meet all the power generation of all mankind in 5 years, and this large account calculates that the electricity value generated by one kilogram of helium-3 is completely more than 280 million yuan. As the saying goes, "things are scarce and expensive", this sentence completely confirms the value of lunar soil.
Although this time China launched Chang'e 5, it only brought back 1.731 kilograms of rare soil from the lunar surface. But then China will further explore the moon, will launch a number of probes to the moon again, and plans to achieve a manned landing on the moon in 2023, when it will be from various places on the moon to sample rocks and finally bring back, I believe that ten years later, the idea of mining on the moon may really come true.