Lunar dust “less frequent than gold” comes to the UK from China

The first Moon Rock samples returned to Earth for almost 50 years to the UK – to rent from China.

The tiny grain of the dust is now blocked inside the high -safety room in Milton Keynes – we were given first look at them.

Professor Mahesh Anand is the only scientist in the UK who has leased this extremely rare material that he characterizes “more valuable than golden dust”.

“No one in the world had access to China’s samples, so it is a great honor and a huge privilege,” he says.

After grinding and spinning dust lasers, the professor’s team hopes to answer fundamental questions about how the month and the early years of the planet are formed.

Inside the grain of dust, there may be evidence to support the theory of scientists, which the moon was made of debris thrown when the earth hit the Mars size 4.5 billion years ago.

China gathered rocks on its Chang’e space mission in 2020 when it landed on a volcanic area called Mons Rümker.

The robotic hand drilled into the soil to collect 2 kg of material that was brought to the ground in the capsule that landed in the internal Mongolia.

It was the first successful selection of lunar tests after the Soviet mission in 1976 and catapulted China in a leading position in the new space race.

Now, after a long tradition of global cooperation between space scientists, China first provided seven international researchers access to samples to allow them to make new discoveries.

Last week, tiny vials were handed over to the glamorous ceremony in Beijing, where he met his colleagues from Russia, Japan, Pakistan and Europe.

“It was almost like a parallel universe – and China is ahead of us in terms of its investment in space programs,” he said.

He returned to the UK with a valuable cargo in the safest place he could come up with – handmade luggage.

In our laboratory at the Keynes Open University, we step on sticky mat to clean the shoes and wear plastic gloves, bathrobe, hair networks and hoods.

The environment inside this high safety should be flawless to prevent pollution.

If the earthly material is mixed with these extraterrestrial spots, it can constantly ruin the analysis that the Prof. team will be done.

We crouched on the floor in front of a number of safes. Professor Anand Unlock one and gently pulls a bag with three -size containers from the box that could save the necklace.

Each of them is firmly pushed-promoted with dust bottle dark gray below.

This is a lunar dust.

It looks insufficient, but to humiliate your space journey.

And Professor Anand says they don’t need more than 60 mg.

“Here, the kid is powerful. Believe me, it is enough for us to take up for years because we specialize in working on the micro,” he adds.

In the laboratory along the corridor, the Kay Kei Kay Technician will become the first to actually work on grains when the vials are opened.

She cut and grinds pieces of stones for 36 years, but it will be the first time she worked on something right from the surface of the moon.

“I am very excited,” she says, showing us how she cuts meteorites using a diamond blade.

“But I’m nervous – the samples are not much and they really can’t go and get more easily. It’s high rates,” she adds.

Once she prepares the samples, they will go to two more laboratories.

In one we see a car with a complex network of countless pipes, valves and wires.

Technician Sasha Verchowski has been building it since the early 1990s. It shows us a small cylinder where the specs of dust can be heated up to 1400C. This will help them get carbon, nitrogen and noble gases.

This is completely unique, and it is one of the reasons when Professor Anand believes that his laboratory was chosen for rare samples.

James Malley, a scientific technician, manages a machine that can find out how much oxygen is contained in dust specs.

It shows us a test launch of what will do.

“I’m going to hit the grain on the laser tray,” he says, showing that the scene has increased on the computer screen.

“It will start to glow, and you will see how it melts inside,” he says.

The team has a year to complete their research. After all, their search search is likely to end up destroying samples.

But China went on after the Chang’e 5 mission.

In 2024, his launch Chang’e 6 returned the first samples from the far side of the moon. This is a deeply mysterious place that can have evidence of long -term volcanic lava flow.

“I very much hope that this is the beginning of long-term cooperation between China and international scientists,” says Prof.

“Many of us have created our career by working on the samples returned to Apollo’s missions, and I think this is a fantastic tradition. I hope other countries will follow the example,” he adds.

Get our flagship newsletter with all the headlines to start the day. Sign up here.