Recent advances in AI are helping scientists unlock new secrets about the Moon’s far side, one of the least understood regions of Earth’s natural satellite. The breakthrough builds on samples and measurements collected during China’s Chang’e-6 mission, the first mission in history to return material from that hemisphere of the Moon.
Nearly half of the lunar surface permanently faces away from Earth, making it far harder to study with traditional remote sensing techniques. By training an AI model on spectral and geological data, researchers were able to infer the mineral and chemical composition of areas that had previously remained largely unmapped.
The results help scientists better understand the geological differences between the near side and far side of the Moon, including variations in volcanic activity and crust formation that date back billions of years.
First high-precision chemical map of the Moon
Material returned by the Chang’e-6 mission allowed a team led by the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to create what researchers describe as the first high-precision global map of major oxides on the Moon. Scientists from Tongji University and other Chinese institutes collaborated on the study, which was published in Nature Sensors.
The research also sheds light on the South Pole–Aitken basin, the Moon’s largest and oldest known impact crater, spanning about 1,550 miles across the far side. Researchers say the findings could help scientists better understand the Moon’s geological evolution and guide landing site selection for future lunar missions, the South China Morning Post reported.
Understanding the Moon’s surface chemistry is key to uncovering its geology and history, but most previous maps relied on remote sensing combined with samples from near-side missions like Apollo, Luna, and Chang’e-5.
The far side, with its rugged terrain and unusual minerals, remained largely unmapped – until 2024, when Chang’e-6 mission returned over 4 lbs of samples from the South Pole–Aitken basin. Chinese scientists fed these measurements into an AI model, creating the first high-precision chemical map of the Moon’s far side and providing new insights into its composition and geological history.
New AI method charts the moon’s iron, titanium, and other oxides
By combining AI with near-side sample data and high-resolution images from Japan’s Kaguya multiband imager, scientists developed a system capable of decoding how sunlight reflected off the surface relates to underlying oxides. This “AI plus remote sensing” approach allowed the team to precisely map global distributions of six major element oxides: iron, titanium, aluminum, magnesium, calcium, and silicon.
The study also highlighted the elemental differences across the Moon’s three main chemical provinces: the dark basaltic seas known as “maria,” the bright ancient crust of the highlands, and the vast South Pole–Aitken basin, revealing a clearer picture of the Moon’s complex geological makeup.
The latest research also provides strong evidence supporting long-standing theories of the Moon’s geological evolution, including the existence of an early global magma ocean that cooled unevenly, leaving distinct crust-mantle and chemical differences between the near and far sides. According to the researchers, these high-precision maps also offer valuable guidance for selecting landing sites and planning future lunar exploration missions.