The space race is accelerating between nations, especially between China and the US. China is currently planning to launch three unmanned Moon missions after discovering a new mineral that could be an energy source.
The East Asian country became the third nation to discover a new lunar mineral, which they called Changesite-(Y), Chinese state media Global Times reports. China's National Space Administration has received approval to send three orbiters as part of the Chang'e lunar program in the next 10 years.
New Moon Mineral Discovered from Lunar Samples From Chang'e 5 Mission
China announced that it discovered a new lunar mineral from the samples retrieved by the Chang'e 5 mission, which returned to Earth in December 2020 with about 3.8lbs (1.73kg) of rock samples. The samples were taken from the lunar surface and 6.5 feet (2 meters) under the ground of a high volcanic region on the Moon's near side where the spacecraft landed.
Before China, the US and Russia first discovered a lunar mineral. Chang'e 5 mission is the nation's first lunar mission that returned samples.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that a research team from the China National Nuclear Corporation's (CNNC) Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology used X-ray diffraction and other high-tech processes to isolate a single crystalline particle about 10 microns in diameter or 1/10 the size of human hair from more than 140,000 lunar particles.
The Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature, and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association has confirmed the phosphate mineral Changesite-(Y) as a new lunar mineral found in lunar basalts. It has become the sixth new mineral that humans discovered on the Moon.
China Atomic Energy Authority's vice-chairman Dong Baotong said that the discovery provides more scientific data for the evaluation and development of lunar resources and deepened humanity's knowledge of Earth's natural satellite and the Solar System as a whole.
CNNC's Wang Xuejun said the discovery is a breakthrough in mineralogy research that provided significant new support for the history and evolution of the Moon that can be useful for future space exploration. He added that the team measured the concentration of a future fusion energy source in the lunar sample for the first time.
Li Xianhua, China Academy of Sciences (CAS) academician and Institute of Geology and Geophysics researcher, speaks during a press conference in Beijing on October 19, 2021, after analysis of the first lunar rocks to be brought back to earth in decades showed the Moon was volcanically active more recently than previously thought.
Space Race Between the US and China
The discovery may be putting more pressure on the US to ramp up its efforts as Moon mining could be the next source of tension between countries. MSN reports that China is building a research station at the Mon's south pole in conjunction with Russia, where NASA is also probing.
China has accelerated its space exploration efforts by building its space station, launching several missions to collect lunar samples, and putting its rover called Zhurong on Mars to rival the rovers of NASA.
Although the US remains the only country to successfully sent astronauts to the Moon, China is also planning to send its astronauts by the end of the decade.
SCMP reported that the lunar exploration program in China was established in 2004 and launched its first spacecraft in 2007. China aims to send their Chang'e 6 probe around 2024 to collect lunar samples from the South Pole-Atkin basin on the far side of the Moon.
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