The findings paint a picture of a much more dynamic subsurface compared to the mostly static Moon from the present era.
The Chinese National Space Agency have allowed international collaborators to access some of the material for analysis that it collected after touching down on the lunar surface in December last year. It is the first time any nation has collected rocks from the Moon since 1976.
Analysis from researchers at The University of Manchester determined that the basaltic volcanic rocks were two billion years old: one billion years younger than any other dated basaltic lava from the Moon.
They believe this presents a new mystery about how such a small rocky planetary body could retain enough heat to enable melting of its interior, and volcanic eruptions at its surface, two and a half billion years after it formed.
The lead researchers from the Beijing SHRIMP Center in China sorted through the material to pick out fragments around two millimetres...