Samples from China mission show Moon 'active' more recently than thought - FRANCE 24
The first lunar rocks brought back to Earth in decades show the Moon was volcanically active more recently than previously thought, Chinese scientists said Tuesday.A Chinese spacecraft carried lunar rocks and soil to Earth last year -- humanity's first mission in four decades to collect samples from the Moon, and a milestone for Beijing's growing space programme.The samples included basalt -- a form of cooled lava -- from 2.03 billion years ago, scientists found, pushing the last known date of volcanic activity on the moon closer to the present day by as much as 900 million years.Previous moon rocks brought back by US and Soviet missions showed evidence of lunar activity up to 2.8 billion years ago, but left a gap in scientists' knowledge about the more recent history of Earth's natural satellite as they were from older parts of the lunar surface.