Materials found on the Moon's surface in 2020 contradict almost everything we know about the celestial body.
Since the early 1960s and 1970s, lunar exploration has once again entered a turbulent era. In recent years, unmanned missions from various nations have reached each other, and although the launch – contrary to the original plan – will not take place together this year, next September NASA will once again send a human to the surface of the nearby celestial body. During the mission called Artemis 2.
Although last month was mostly about the successful mission of Chang’o-6, during which the Chinese space agency collected a rock sample from the far side of the Moon, its predecessor, Chang’o-5, performed similar missions on the far side of the Moon in 2020. And in the past few days, a surprising discovery has been made about the finds brought home at that time. The analysis of the rocks returned by the lander has been ongoing for years, and researchers working on the project have found natural multi-layered graphene among the samples, which, according to experts, has no place on the Moon.
The material, which is one of the most common forms of carbon, is actually a layer of carbon just one atom thick, and is extremely strong and flexible, but extremely difficult to produce. The method was developed by two Russian physicists in 2010. It is not yet clear, despite its importance, how much of it is naturally present on the moon.
However, the most important and mysterious question is how this “exotic” material got so far from Earth. Currently, the accepted theory about the Moon is that it was formed during an event that occurred billions of years ago, when an asteroid collided with Earth. However, this origin story, which is thought to be the most likely so far, almost rules out the appearance of graphene on the Moon, and graphene was never found among the many findings of the Apollo missions. It is possible that this discovery was a rare exception due to a meteorite impact, but this assumption can only be proven through further testing.
