Meeting the first UK scientist to receive Moon dust from China

In late 2020, I was on the ground reporting from China's southern island province of Hainan, covering the launch of Chang'e 5 - China's first lunar sample return mission. 

Two weeks later, I found myself in the freezing dark of Inner Mongolia in northern China, filming the moment its return capsule touched down on Earth. 

That mission made China the third country in the world to bring back Moon rocks. 

Four years later, I'm now in a quiet lab in Milton Keynes, England - where a small amount of that Moon dust has made an equally historic landing.

'Over the moon' to receive the dust

Professor Mahesh Anand from The Open University is the only scientist in the United Kingdom - and one of just seven researchers worldwide - to have received samples of the rare lunar material from China's Chang'e 5 mission.

"It's a great honour and really a rare privilege to be in a position to be trusted for the analysis of such precious material," said Anand.

"Honestly I was just thrilled that my proposal was successful and it was only when I attended the China Space Day in Shanghai on April 24 that I found myself among seven other teams from around the world, which made it even more special."

Anand said he had requested three vials of Moon dust, each weighing 20 milligrams.

"I requested three samples, one from the top of the drill core, one in the middle and one towards the bottom of the drill core, because I also was interested in understanding that as you go deeper into the surface of the Moon, what chemical variations you might see."

The three vials are currently sealed in safes at the university. At the time of our visit, his team had not yet started analyzing the samples.

Anand gave me a brief tour of the state-of-the-art lab, showing the sophisticated equipment his team will use, which is one of the reasons why he managed to obtain the samples. 

Chief among them is the oxygen isotope lab, where oxygen from the samples is extracted and compared with existing data to help determine the Moon's origin.

From Apollo to Chang'e—and possibly beyond

Anand has long worked with samples from the Apollo missions and lunar meteorites, which are around three billion years old. The Chang'e 5 samples - estimated to be two billion years old - offer a crucial missing piece.

"Chang'e 5 collected samples from an area of the Moon that has never been visited before. We have samples from any area of the Moon where volcanic activity happened as recently as only two billion years ago," he said.

"You suddenly have samples that actually erupted at the surface of the Moon only two billion years ago. These samples give us the opportunity to actually not only interrogate and investigate what they might be telling us about the inside of the Moon because essentially they are derived from the interior of the Moon. So we can use these samples as a window into the lunar interior."

His previous work with Apollo-era samples helped overturn the longstanding belief in a 'dry Moon' by discovering evidence of water. The Chang'e 5 samples are now offering new complexity to that theory.

"What we found was the water amount in the Moon was not as much as it was indicated from the Apollo samples. And now we have Chang'e 6 samples that have been brought from the far side and the story is becoming even more complicated," said Anand.

When asked if he hopes to apply for access to samples from China's Chang'e 6 mission, which returned in 2024, Anand was enthusiastic. 

That mission retrieved rock from the Moon's far side, specifically from the South Pole-Aitken basin.

"It's the largest impact basin in the solar system. It formed just over 4 billion years ago and it is thought that the impact was so big and so impactful that it almost brought the interior, including the mantle of the Moon, very close to the surface. 

"It may be that Chang'e 6 samples actually contain fragments of material that represent that lunar mantle," he said.

A first for China - and a boost for global science

This marks the first time China has shared its lunar samples with international researchers, nearly five years after the mission was completed. Seven institutions across six countries - the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Pakistan, and the US - have been granted access.

Among them, Brown University and Stony Brook University in the United States received samples. Despite the 2011 Wolf Amendment, which bars NASA from bilateral collaboration with Chinese entities, these universities secured access through special permissions.

"Guided by the principles of equality, mutual benefit, peaceful utilization, and win-win cooperation, China National Space Administration (CNSA) engages in international exchanges and cooperation in aerospace," said a CNSA spokesperson.

"The international sharing of lunar samples and joint research efforts enable scientists from around the world to study the Moon's formation and evolution, fostering collaborative exploration of the universe's mysteries."