The only samples available prior to this were those returned by the Apollo and Luna missions in late 1960s and 1970s that are all more than three billion years old. This led scientists to believe that the Moon has been geologically dead since then.
But a new study from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) using the newly acquired samples found that mantle melting-point depression due to the presence of fusible, easily melted components could generate young lunar volcanism.
For the small rocky Moon, the heat fuelling volcanic activity was expected to have been lost long before these eruptions two billion years ago.
Scientists previously speculated that either elevated water content or heat-producing elements in the lunar interior might have driven volcanism in the late stage of the Moon’s life. But the Chang’E-5 data recently published in Nature has ruled out these once-leading hypotheses.
“Recent melting...