{"id":183533,"date":"2025-11-16T11:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/183533\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T11:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:20:09","slug":"chinese-team-finds-iron-rust-in-lunar-soil-challenging-old-ideas-about-moons-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/183533\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese team finds \u2018iron rust\u2019 in lunar soil, challenging old ideas about moon\u2019s surface"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese scientists have identified micron-sized grains of \u201ciron rust\u201d in lunar soil samples<\/a> brought back by the Chang\u2019e-6 mission<\/a> last year. This finding challenges the traditional understanding of the moon\u2019s surface chemistry and offers new clues to explain lunar magnetic anomalies.The results were published on Friday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. A research team from Shandong University, in collaboration with the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan University, identified micrometre-scale crystalline hematite and maghemite \u2013 both types of iron oxide \u2013 in the Chang\u2019e-6 lunar samples<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The moon has long been considered a dry, chemically reduced environment where iron oxides were thought to be virtually absent.<\/p>\n

Although ferric iron \u2013 bearing materials, including magnetite and iron hydroxides, were identified in samples collected during the Apollo programme, a 1971 study asserted that such compounds were unstable on the lunar surface, suggesting that the iron hydroxides detected were likely the result of terrestrial contamination.<\/p>\n

However, recent remote sensing data and samples from the Chang\u2019e-5 mission<\/a> have cast doubt on this view. Since 2020, observations by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper have indicated the widespread presence of highly oxidised hematite at high lunar latitudes. In addition, a trace amount of nanophase magnetite was identified in Chang\u2019e-5 lunar soil samples in 2022 using state-of-the-art microscopic analysis.\"China\u2019sChina\u2019s Chang\u2019e-6 lander touches down on the far side of the moon in June of last year. Photo: China National Space Administration\/Xinhua via AP<\/p>\n

What remained lacking was compelling mineralogical evidence to confirm these findings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese scientists have identified micron-sized grains of \u201ciron rust\u201d in lunar soil samples brought back by the Chang\u2019e-6…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[103492,103495,61056,103486,103490,103494,4563,6599,18,103498,19,103493,17,103491,103496,103487,58164,103499,103488,133,44687,103497,62798,103489],"class_list":{"0":"post-183533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-apollo-crater","9":"tag-apollo-programme","10":"tag-change-6","11":"tag-change-5","12":"tag-change-5-mission","13":"tag-change-6-mission","14":"tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","15":"tag-earth","16":"tag-eire","17":"tag-hematite","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-institute-of-geochemistry","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-iron-oxide","22":"tag-lunar-magnetic-anomalies","23":"tag-lunar-samples","24":"tag-lunar-soil","25":"tag-moon-mineralogy-mapper","26":"tag-moon-rocks","27":"tag-science","28":"tag-science-advances","29":"tag-shandong-university","30":"tag-south-pole-aitken-basin","31":"tag-yunnan-university"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115559112849974021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}