Moon rock samples to be laser-grinded: 4.5 billion-year journey begins

Approximately 50 years later, the first samples of Moon rocks brought to Earth arrived in England on loan from China.

The tiny grains of dust are currently locked away in a safe at a high-security facility in Milton Keynes. According to the BBC, Professor Mahesh Anand is the only scientist in the UK to have borrowed the extremely rare material, which he describes as "more valuable than gold dust".

“No one else in the world had access to the samples in China, so this is a great honor and a great privilege,” Anand said.

By breaking up the dust with a laser, Prof. Anand's team hopes to answer fundamental questions about how the Moon was formed and the early years of planet Earth.

Dust grains may contain evidence to support scientists' theory that the Moon was formed from debris created when Earth collided with a Mars-sized planet 4.5 billion years ago.

ASSEMBLED WITH ROBOTIC ARM

China collected these rocks when it landed in a volcanic region called Mons Rümker on the Chang'e 5 space mission in 2020.

A robotic arm drilled into the ground to collect 2 kilometres of material, which was returned to Earth in a capsule that landed in Inner Mongolia. It was the first successful lunar sampling since a Soviet mission in 1976 and put China in the lead in the new space race.

Now, following a long tradition of global cooperation between space scientists, China has for the first time given samples to seven international researchers to make new discoveries.

The vials were handed over to Prof Anand at a grand ceremony in Beijing last week, where he met with colleagues from Russia, Japan, Pakistan and Europe.

“It was almost like a parallel universe, and China is way ahead of us in terms of their investment in their space program,” Anand said. He returned to England with his precious cargo in his hand luggage, the safest place he could think of.