Scientists have to study the data transmitted by the Rover Yutu in 2014. It turned out that the “Jade hare” the rocks can tell you a lot about the youth of our natural satellite, when everywhere it was a volcanic eruption.
The probe Chang’e-3 has prisonersa at a relatively young surface of the moon, which gave the Rover the ability to study the samples, whose age of three billion years. For example, the samples brought by astronauts from the Apollo missions, there were over 4 billion years.
Because the rocks in the landing zone of the probe were not mixed with garbage, the Rover was able to collect clean samples and thus to know the composition of the volcanic bedrock below the surface of the moon. Different groups of researchers have determined that it is quite rich in titanium dioxide and the mineral olivine. This proves that moon rocks are not all the same, and the differences among them are much more than we thought previously, because the samples brought “Apollo” had a completely different composition.
Professor at the University of Washington Bradley Jolliff, who helped to analyze the data transmitted WiTu, considers these results very important:
“Such diversity tells us that the upper mantle of the moon is much less uniform in composition than Earth’s mantle. And correlating the ages of samples with their chemical composition, we can see how the moons volcanism changed with time”.
Given that scientists now think that the Moon originated from a part of the Earth after its collision with a celestial body the size of Mars, the new information may also shed light on Earth’s past.
According to the materials Engadget.com