By 
July 12th, 2023
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
French researchers are ready to begin studies of lunar samples retrieved by China’s Chang’e-5 mission, rocketed back from the Moon to Earth in December 2020.
The lunar samples are from the 1,700 grams returned to Earth from the Statio Tianchuan in the northeastern Oceanus Procellarum on the near side of the Moon.
Two containers of lunar specimens were transported to Paris in June and have since been secured in storage at the Natural History Museum of Paris. They weigh around one gram and 0.5 grams of lunar drill material, with both being stored inside sealed containers in dry chambers.
Box indicates Chang’e-5 lander on the basaltic plains of Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”) in December 2020.
“We are starting to develop a program to be able to open the containers, which is not easy because they have to be opened in a strictly-controlled atmosphere. You must not contaminate them. This is what we are going to do in the months to come: we will open the containers with our colleagues from the IPGP and then afterwards, we will extract the grains,” said Jean Duprat, an expert at the museum, told China Central Television (CCTV).
Photo taking during Chang’e-5 surface sampling.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Gifted samples
At the L’Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), or the Paris Institute of Earth Physics, researchers there are setting up a clean room to carry out a comprehensive study of the lunar collectibles.
“What we will do is to measure the very precise chemical compositions of these samples in our laboratory. These lunar samples brought back by Chang’e-5 come from an area of the Moon that had never been sampled before. The new information that these samples will bring us will be extremely important,” said IPGP’s Frederic Moynier in the CCTV interview.
Chang’e-5 return capsule holding lunar specimens.
Credit: National Astronomical Observatories, CAS
The gifted samples will be studied in a joint effort by the IPGP, the French National Center for Space Studies (CNES), the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and the University of Paris-Sorbonne for the next five to seven years.
Go to this CCTV video detailing the study of lunar samples in France at:
Posted in Space News
