The Chang’e 4 and its Yutu-2 rover continue their exploration of the far side of the Moon. Geologically, this is a very different surface that may have formed when a blob of material hit the Moon.

Our moon was formed when a Mars-sized object named Thea hit the proto-Earth. This collision splattered material into a cloud that over time coalesced into perhaps 3 different objects – our dense Earth, the main bulk of the Moon, and a third object that splatted into what we see as the far side of the Moon. Chang’e 4 and Yutu-2 are the first vehicles to explore this hemisphere in detail, and in the most recent set of images, we’re seeing what appear to be rocks that are unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Scientists are saying they appear uneroded, which in the context of the moon means they are less affected by the steady rain of micrometeors than the rocks that we’re used to. This implies they are fairly fresh material unlike what we’ve seen before. Exactly what that means is still to be determined. According to Dan Moriarty, a NASA Postdoc at Goddard, these rocks could have been revealed “10-100 million years [ago] or 1-2 billion years. It’s really hard to say definitively.”

At this point, we only have the low resolution teaser images. In the coming weeks we should be getting the higher resolution images that will reveal what kind of rocks these are, for instance are they made of varied minerals stuck together into a what is called a breccia, or are they more uniform in their composition, like a piece of crust material that was excavated by an asteroid impact. When those high res images and their related science come out, we will bring them to you here on the Daily Space.

More Information

• What’s up with that rock? China’s moon rover finds something strange on the far side (Space.com)