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Climate and science reporter
Kate Stephens and Tony Jolliffe
BBC climate and science team
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The first samples of Moon rock brought back to Earth in nearly 50 years have arrived in the UK – on loan from China.
The tiny grains of dust are now locked inside a safe in a high security facility in Milton Keynes – we were given the first look at them.
Professor Mahesh Anand is the only scientist in the UK to have been loaned this extremely rare material, which he describes as “more precious than gold dust”.
“Nobody in the world had access to China’s samples, so this is a great honour and a huge privilege,” he says.
After grinding and zapping the dust with lasers, Prof Anand’s team hope to answer fundamental questions about how the Moon formed and about the early years of planet Earth.
Inside the grains of dust could be evidence to back up scientists’ theory that the Moon was made from the debris thrown out when Earth struck a Mars-sized planet 4.5 billion years ago.
China collected the rocks on its Chang’e 5 space mission in 2020 when it landed on a volcanic area called Mons Rümker.
A robotic arm drilled into the soil to collect 2kg of material, which was brought back to Earth in a capsule which landed in Inner Mongolia.
It was the first successful lunar sampling since a Soviet mission in 1976 and catapulted China into a leading position in the new
