Image of the far side of the Portrait taken by the Chang’e 4 spacecraft.
China’s Chang’e 4 probe was the first to land on the far side of the Portrait, where it collected evidence of the largest crater in the solar system that sheds light on how Earth’s diather might have evolved, according to a study published in this Wednesday Nature.
Chang’e 4, named after the Chinese stained glass goddess, touched down on the opposite rim of Von Karman Crater in the Aitken Basin at the south pole of Adiathere on January 3.
In the 1970s a theory emerged that an ocean of magma covered the surface of the stained glass in its early stages, and as it cooled the lighter minerals floated around the surface while the heavier ones were deposited .
Understanding the composition of the toga fault is “essential for testing whether a magma ocean ever existed” and helping to advance our knowledge of the thermal and magmatic progress of the adiathere, said the lead author. study and professor at the China Society of Sciences, Li Chun Lai.
On the other hand, learning more about the progress of the Portrait can provide a window into the progress of Earth and other rocky planets, since their surface, he said, “is relatively untouched compared to the surface of the early Earth”.
The properties of the toga defect, its composition, structure and gradation “remain uncertain and poorly documented”, recalls Patrick Pinet, of the French Institute of Astrophysics and Planetological Research, in an article accompanying the study.
The study presents the first observations made by the Yutu-2 fault rover with its near-infrared spectrometer of shallow sections of the Atkin Basin and smaller but deeper impact craters.
Li’s team found differences between the newly obtained data and that of surface materials with typical defects. This suggests the presence of low-calcium pyroxene and olivine minerals at the surface, which may have originated from the upper toga.
The researchers expected to find a large amount of toga material mined from the shallow ground of the Atkien Basin, as its formation may have resulted from an impact event that penetrated the crust inside the stained glass, but they found fewer traces of olivine, the main component. of the upper dress.
Without sequestration, a greater amount of this mineral was encountered in samples taken from deeper impacts, which Li says could mean “the toga defect is equal parts olivine and pyroxene.”
For this reason, the team felt that the Chang’e 4 mission needed to explore further to better understand the geodynamics of the landing site and summarize more spectrometric data to validate these initial results and fully understand the composition of the toga defect. .
Pinet said the results obtained by Li and his team are “exciting and could have important implications for determining the composition of the upper toga defect” and “could also affect our understanding of how the interior of the stained glass window forms.” and evolves”. The planets”.
ECE