The capsule will be sought by several helicopters as well as ground teams. However, the area is relatively well known because it served as the landing site of the Chinese spaceship Shenzhou. The capsule is expected to have transported about two kilograms of lunar rock to Earth.
The probe obtained the samples both by drilling into the surface and by collecting directly from the site. They may be billions of years younger than those brought in by earlier missions organized by the United States and the former Soviet Union. The scientists promise from the samples that they will provide additional information about the history of the Moon and other bodies in the solar system.
The Chang-e 5 spacecraft was launched into orbit on November 23 by the Long March 5 rocket. It landed on the surface of the Moon on December 1. The spacecraft’s journey back to Earth began on Sunday.
The last samples of the Moon were transported to Earth in 1976 by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 24. Almost four hundred kilograms of lunar rock were also transported to Earth by American astronauts who landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972.
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