Unlocking the Moon’s Secrets: How a Tiny Glass Bead Reveals Its Hidden Interior

A tiny glass bead from China’s Chang’e-5 lunar mission is giving scientists a closer look at the moon’s mysterious depths. This little bead, collected in 2020 from the Ocean of Storms, is sparking new discussions about the moon’s history and formation.

Weighing about 3.7 pounds (1.7 kilograms), the samples from Chang’e-5 include a remarkable glass bead that dates back about 68 million years. This bead is quite special—it has a high amount of magnesium oxide, which stands out from the volcanic rocks found in that area. A team led by Chen-Long Ding from Nanjing University detailed these findings in a recent study.

Experts believe this bead formed when an asteroid impacted the moon with great force, unearthing material from deep below the surface. “This discovery helps us understand the moon’s internal evolution,” said Tim Johnson, a geology professor at Curtin University in Australia. He emphasized that such impacts can bring hidden mantle material to the surface, giving us insights we’ve never had before.

Located in an area filled with more than 100,000 craters, matching these glass beads with their original sites is a challenge. One theory suggests that the bead may have come from the Imbrium Basin, an ancient impact site that formed nearly 4 billion years ago. Studies using remote sensing techniques have identified minerals around this basin that match the bead’s composition.

The formation of the Imbrium Basin was one of the most dramatic events in lunar history. It likely dredged up materials from the upper mantle and spread them across the surface. Another smaller impact around 68 million years ago might have re-melted this ancient debris, turning it into glass beads. “We’ve never directly sampled the mantle, so this is groundbreaking,” Professor Alexander Nemchin, also from Curtin University, noted excitedly.

China has recently shared its Chang’e-5 samples with scientists around the globe, the first lunar samples returned since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976. Research teams from several countries, including the U.S., France, Germany, Japan, and Pakistan, are eagerly analyzing the material. So far, some findings suggest that parts of the lunar material are about 120 million years younger than samples from the Apollo missions, indicating volcanic activity may have occurred more recently than previously thought. This discovery raises intriguing questions about what powered this activity without the presence of water or significant radioactive elements.

Shan Zhongde, head of the Chinese Space Agency, expressed optimism for future discoveries, stating, “We look forward to scientists worldwide making more scientific findings, jointly expanding human knowledge.” Researchers are excited about using their advanced tools to unlock more lunar secrets.

For more insights, check out this [research paper on these findings](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adv9019) published in Science Advances.

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