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Lunar regolith sample collected by China's Chang'e 5 mission displayed at Airshow China 2021. On 16 December 2020, China's Chang'e 5 mission returned to Earth with about 2 kilograms of rock and dirt it picked up from the Moon. It is the first lunar regolith sample to return to Earth since 1976.
Geological studies of the Moon are based on a combination of Earth-based telescope observations, measurements from orbiting spacecraft, lunar samples, and geophysical data. . Six locations were sampled directly during the crewed Apollo program landings from 1969 to 1972, which returned 382 kilograms (842 lb) of lunar rock and lunar soil to Earth [8] In addition, three robotic Soviet Luna ...
The term lunar soil is often used interchangeably with "lunar regolith" but typically refers to the finer fraction of regolith, that which is composed of grains one centimetre in diameter or less. Some have argued that the term " soil " is not correct in reference to the Moon because soil is defined as having organic content, whereas the Moon ...
Luckily, the lunar regolith is full of metal oxides. But while the science of extracting oxygen from metal oxides, for example, is well understood on Earth, doing this on the moon is much harder.
The lunar soil is composed of a blend of silica and iron-containing compounds that may be fused into a glass-like solid using microwave radiation. [92] [93] The European Space Agency working in 2013 with an independent architectural firm, tested a 3D-printed structure that could be constructed of lunar regolith for use as a Moon base.
The finer regolith, the lunar soil of silicon dioxide glass, ... [119] [120] At 13 km (8.1 mi) deep, its floor is the lowest point on the surface of the Moon.
The Lunar Prospector probe, launched in 1998, employed a neutron spectrometer to measure the amount of hydrogen in the lunar regolith near the polar regions. [32] It was able to determine hydrogen abundance and location to within 50 parts per million and detected enhanced hydrogen concentrations at the lunar north and south poles.
Building the lunar base inside a deep crater would provide at least partial shielding against radiation and micrometeoroids. Artificial magnetic fields have been proposed [ 61 ] [ 62 ] as a means to provide radiation shielding for long range deep space crewed missions, and it might be possible to use similar technology on a lunar habitat.