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Earlier this month, the Chinese space agency revealed that the Yutu-2 rover it had sent to the back of the moon had discovered something it did not expect. The rover maneuvers spotted something strange in a crater just as he was preparing to go out for the lunar night.
Chinese researchers have said that this strange, shiny substance has a "gel-like" appearance. No one can say for sure what it's all about, but the older theories suggested that it could be a lunar glass created by the impact created by the crater itself. Now, China has released some additional images of the crater and the material inside, but the mystery is no closer to being solved.
The new images come from Our Space in China, and include several photos of the lunar surface, traces of the rover cutting through the dust and craters containing the strange material.
Capturing images closer to the substance was a challenge for the rover because debris around the crater poses a serious risk. Despite this, the mobile team was determined to get as close as possible and took new pictures.
The colored area and the red outline that you see in the nearest image are probably related to the mobile scanning tools. The camera used to image the surface is entirely black and white, so none of the colors you see are related to the substance itself. Analyzes of the material with a spectrometer tool can provide additional clues about the nature of the material in pieces, but Chinese researchers have not published additional information on this topic.
As before, the most likely explanation is that an impact generated enough heat to form a glass from the minerals scattered on the lunar surface, thus leaving fragments. Nevertheless, it is an interesting opportunity to learn about the forces that have shaped the Moon over billions of years. We will have to wait to see what Chinese scientists have developed after studying the new data.
Source of the image: Our space
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