UK-based Indian scientist gets rare lunar soil from China

An Indian-origin scientist, based in UK, Professor Mahesh Anand received an ultra-rare sample of lunar soil straight from China chang’e 6 mission, collected from the Moon’s far side. This might be a year of wonders as for the first time any nation has returned material from the Moon’s far side, a region previously unexplored due to communication challenges.

Professor Anand, leads the planetary material group at the open university in Milton keynes and is the UK’s only scientists who has been granted access to this precious material. This sample weighs about 60 milligrams, and was transported under tight security and is now housed in a high-security laboratory to prevent contamination.

What is the Chang’e 6 mission?

This mission is China’s groundbreaking mission aimed at collecting lunar soil and rock samples from the far side of the Moon, a region which has never been explored before. Launched by China in 2024, due to this collection, scientists help to study the moon’s formation, composition and solar system history.
This mission successfully brought back about 1.9 kilograms of lunar material. These samples are being studied and is being distributed to international researchers for analysis. Notably, the lunar soil exhibits distint charecterstsic compared to previous samples. This has shown higher plagioclase and lower olivine content.

This lunar soil research aims to offer fundamental responses about the early history of Earth and the formation of the Moon. One of the most accepted concepts is that the Moon formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago from material remaining after a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized planet. Scientists try to get to know this theory better through an examination of the chemical content of these samples, which has elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and noble gases.

China's commitment to international scientific collaboration in space exploration is exemplified by this collaboration. The involvement of an Indian-born scientist in the UK highlights the extent to which international moon exploration is and how we are all working towards understanding our galactic neighbour. This brings us one step closer to discovering how the formation of moon happened billions of years ago.