Proletariat Blogging in the Heart of (UK) Predatory Capitalism! Exploring the Interface between Matter and Perception, Chinese Buddhism, Daoism, Hakka Ethnography, and All Aspects of Radical Politics, History, Psychology and Philosophy – 全世界无产者联合起来!
The Hongmeng Programme, designed to detect the universe’s “infant cries,” consists of 10 satellites forming a low-frequency radio telescope array. The satellites will travel to the far side of the Moon, a naturally quiet “radio sanctuary” shielded from Earth and solar interference, allowing the system to capture extremely faint signals from deep space. The project aims to shed light on the turbulent epoch hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, before the first stars formed.
Using advanced techniques to examine mineral composition and oxygen isotopes, the researchers scrutinized lunar soil and confirmed that the fragments came from CI-like chondrites — a type of meteorite rich in water and organic materials that typically originates in the outer Solar System.
The study implies that the Earth-Moon system may have experienced more collisions from carbonaceous chondrites than scientists had previously estimated.
This discovery not only indicates that material from the outer Solar System can migrate to the inner Solar System, but also has important implications for explaining the origin of water on the lunar surface, said Lin Mang, a researcher at GIG.
The lunar lander, named Lanyue, which means embracing the moon, consists of both a landing module and a propulsion module. It is a newly developed spacecraft designed to support crewed missions to and from the moon.
It will be used to transport two cosmonauts between the lunar orbit and the lunar surface — and will carry a lunar rover and other scientific payloads. After landing, the lander will serve as a life-support centre, an energy centre and a data centre, offering assistance and serving as a base for the cosmonauts’ stay and activities on the moon’s surface.
Noting that the test was complex with a long cycle and technical challenges, the space agency said the success represents a breakthrough in research and development in terms of China’s manned lunar exploration programme.
“Ice giants preserve pristine gaseous materials that record the evolutionary history of protostellar clouds and crucial information about planetary formation. These planets serve as vital subjects for studying the solar system’s origins and exoplanets,” Yang Mengfei, a senior scientist at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing and chief designer of the Chang’e 5 lunar mission, told China Daily in an exclusive interview. An ice giant is a colossal planet composed mainly of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, including oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and sulphur. Two planets in the solar system, Uranus and Neptune, are categorized as ice giants. According to Yang, Uranus has the coldest atmospheric temperature in the solar system, with a minimum of about minus 224 C, and the most tilted rotation axis among all planets in the solar system. Meanwhile, Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun, has the strongest surface winds, reaching speeds of up to 2,100 kilometres per hour. Moreover, Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, is considered “the most likely extra-terrestrial body in the solar system to host microbial activity”, and may provide key clues to life’s origins.
In 2024, Chang’e-6 made history by bringing 1,935.3 grams of lunar far-side samples back to Earth. These samples were collected from the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin, the largest, deepest and oldest basin on the moon, which provided a rare opportunity to clarify the compositional differences between the near and far sides and to unravel the long-standing mystery of their asymmetry.
“The SPA Basin is one of the moon’s three major tectonic units, measuring approximately 2,500 kilometers in diameter. The energy from the impact that formed this crater is estimated to be 1 trillion times greater than that of an atomic bomb explosion. Yet, the exact influence of such a massive collision on the moon’s evolution has remained an unsolved mystery,” Wu Fuyuan, an academician of CAS and a leading researcher with the IGG, said at a CAS press conference on Wednesday.
The four papers published in Nature systematically reveal, for the first time, the effects of this colossal impact, which is the core highlight of these findings, said Wu.
The samples will be distributed among scientists, who will examine their physical properties, chemical and mineralogical content and isotopic composition, contributing to studies on the formation and evolution of asteroids and the early solar system.
Delivering the samples to Earth will not be the end of the mission. The Tianwen 2 spacecraft will then enter the second phase of its journey, flying toward a main-belt comet called 311P to conduct a remote-sensing survey and transmit the data back to Earth for scientific research, according to the CNSA.
The whole mission is expected to yield ground-breaking discoveries and expand the understanding of Earth and small celestial bodies inside the solar system, scientists said.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 