Space volcanoes erupted on dark side of moon for over a billion years

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. US and Chinese researchers have discovered that supervolcanoes erupted billions of years ago on the far side, similar to those on the near side, creating massive craters in the moon’s surface. The groundbreaking findings came from 2kg of lunar rocks and soil collected by China’s Chang’e-6 mission—the first spacecraft in history to successfully land and launch from the far side, an area whose geology differs dramatically from the hemisphere visible from Earth. open image in gallery China’s Chang’e-6 made history as the first probe ever to lift off the far side of the moon “This is an incredibly exciting study”, Professor Qiuli Li from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics wrote in a detailed peer review. In 2020, the Chang’e-5 spacecraft returned moon rocks from the near side, the first since those collected by NASA’s Apollo astronauts and Soviet Union spacecraft in the 1970s.