The first lunar rover to visit the far side of the moon discovered a layer of lunar dust up to 12 meters thick.
The rover and its lander, which sits in Lu Karman crater, are part of China's Chang'e 4 mission. Their landing there on January 3, 2019, marked the first time a spacecraft has visited the dark side of the moon.
The rover was the first to measure the lunar surface dust using radar, and researchers from China and Italy described the results in an article published Wednesday in Science Advances.
Lunar dust, also called regolith, is a talcum-like substance of dusty rocks and dust that settled after asteroids bombarded the moon's surface billions of years ago. Chang'e 4's results confirm that this dust also covers the far side of the moon in a layer that scientists have called 'pretty thick.'
“This work shows that the widespread use of [Chang'e 4 radar] could significantly improve our understanding of the history of lunar impact and volcanism and shed new light on our understanding of the geological evolution of the far side of the moon,” the study authors wrote.
This understanding will be key for future missions to the moon. Moon dust can cloud the spacecraft's instruments as it approaches the lunar surface, increasing the risk of failure.
Below 12 meters of fine dust, the Chang'e 4 rover also found a layer of rough material full of rocks, followed by alternating layers of coarse and fine matter up to 40 meters deep.
While China doesn't have a common timeline for the rest of the mission, the goals of robots on the dark side of the moon are to photograph the terrain, study lunar geology, look for water ice, and scan the night sky for radio bursts.
This article is published by Business Insider.
Sources: Photo: China National Space Administration
