China Releases a Detailed Map of the Moon's Geology Which Will Be Helpful In Future Space Exploration

Scientists in China have released the most detailed map yet of the Moon's surface, a project created by more than a hundred researchers. The map shows the composition and structure of the lunar surface and reveals the Moon's evolutionary history.

The full map is available from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' National Space Science Center. Researchers wrote that such maps play an important role in scientific research, as well as planning space exploration and selecting the landing sites for future lunar missions.

High-Resolution Map of the Moon's Geology

Scientists in China have used the data from their recent lunar missions to create a high-resolution map of the Moon. Those data primarily came from China's Lunar Exploration Program collected over the past 15 years and were supplemented by data from the missions from the US, Japan, and India.

The map reveals geologic layers, structure features, and also the history of the Moon's surface, which has 12,341 impact craters, 81 impact basins, 17rock samples, and 14 different structures, Space.com reported.

They wrote in their paper, titled "The 1:2,500,000-scale Geologic Map of the Global Moon," published in the journal Science Bulletin, that the map reflects the evolution of the Moon's crust under processes that involved catastrophic asteroid impacts and volcanic activities.

In making the map, the scientists used a Mollweide projection that created its elliptical view and provided stereographic projections of the north and south poles of the Moon. Researchers could use this high-resolution map for further lunar geologic mapping and landing site selection in the future.

This project involved researchers and graduate students from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, China University of Geoscience, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and universities in Shandong and Inner Mongolia.

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China's Chang'e Missions

Mapping the lunar surface used the data mainly from China's lunar missions or also known as the Chang'e missions. According to The Planetary Society, Chang'e missions observed the lunar surface much like the lunar missions NASA and other space agencies have sent to the Moon.

However, no spacecraft has yet returned a sample from the Moon to Earth since Soviet Union's Luna 24. But Chang'e-5 mission undertook this challenge using a similar Apollo mission by NASA. The Chang'e spacecraft consists of four parts: the service module, lander, ascent vehicle, and an Earth return module.

The lander used a mechanical scoop and drill to burrow 3.2 feet (2 meters) underground and successfully collected 3.7 pounds (1.7 kilograms) of Moon samples. Aside from that, the spacecraft also has three scientific payloads, a suite of cameras to document the landing site, a ground-penetrating radar to map the surroundings, and a spectrometer to study the mineralogical composition of the landing site.

Like all spacecraft, Chang'e relies on solar energy to power its scientific equipment, blast the ascent vehicle to orbit before nightfall and reach the Earth 14 days later. The module carried lunar samples that are now being studied.

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