The rock and dust samples – the first to be recovered from the far side of the moon – were collected by the Chang’e-6 spacecraft after a nearly two-month mission that was fraught with risks.
Led by experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the researchers used radiometric dating to determine the age of the volcanic rock.
Their analysis also showed that the “strangely young” eruption occurred around 2.83 billion years ago, something not found on the far side of the Moon.
“This is an incredibly exciting study,” wrote Professor Tully Li of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in a detailed peer review.
“This is the first geochronological study conducted from Chang’e-6 samples, and it will be of enormous importance to the lunar and planetary science community.”
Although it’s commonly known as the “dark side,” this part of the Moon actually gets a lot of sunlight—we just can’t see it.
This is because the Moon is tidally locked to Earth and takes the same amount of time to go around our planet – about 27 days – meaning that the same side is always facing us.
The the first image of the far side, external was captured in 1959 by the Soviet spacecraft Mesyat-3. They were grainy, but they gave earthlings the opportunity to look at the moon from another side.
Since then, several higher quality images have been uploaded, including unusual NASA video showing the Moon from the reverse side, with the Earth in the background.
And earlier this year, during the Chang’e-6 mission, a small rover was deployed to take a selfie of the lander sitting on a rocky surface on the far side.
