SAEDNEWS: The First Sample Collected from a Remote Part of the Moon Helps Solve the Mystery of Earth’s Water
According to Saed News Science Service citing Space, fragments of a rare type of meteorite have been found in samples returned to Earth by China’s Chang’e-6 mission. These remnants could help scientists trace the origins of water on our planet.
The discovered material, weighing 1,935.9 grams of lunar regolith, belongs to a class of carbon- and water-rich meteorites known as CI chondrites. On Earth, these meteorites account for less than one percent of all collected space rocks. The most famous example is the Ivuna meteorite, which fell in Tanzania in 1938. In space, however, the situation is different. The Ryugu and Bennu asteroids, visited by Japan’s Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, respectively, show similarities to CI chondrites. Additionally, this type of meteorite is abundant on the Moon.
Mang Lin, a professor of isotopic chemistry at the Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, explains: “Based on the limited exogenous material identified on the Moon, CI chondrites may be more common there than on Earth. Nevertheless, current data are insufficient for firm conclusions, and further measurements will be needed in future analyses.”
Chang’e-6 landed in June 2024 in the Moon’s South Pole–Aitken basin to collect the first samples from this remote region. CI chondrites are fine-grained and highly porous, making them prone to disintegration and chemical reactions with oxygen and water—factors that contribute to their rarity on Earth.
In other words, these materials tend to crumble or chemically alter quickly on our planet, whereas the Moon’s dry surface provides a more suitable environment for preserving them.
