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Lunar farside to be explored by Chang’e-4

Nature Geoscience volume 12, pages 222–223 (2019)Cite this article

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Because the South Pole-Aitken basin, approximately 2,500 km in diameter and 13 km deep (refs. 4,5), is thought to have formed from an impact that penetrated through the Moon’s distinctive plagioclase-rich crust, the basin may expose fragments of the lunar mantle4,5,6,7. It also contains some of the relatively few farside maria. Therefore, exploration of this region may address some fundamental questions, such as on the nature of the lunar mantle, the cause of the greater crustal thickness on the farside, and how farside maria differ from their nearside counterparts. Furthermore, better constraints of the age of this basin may inform our understanding of the early impact flux on the Moon, and therefore also on Earth.

Chang’e-4 will also investigate the potential of the lunar farside as a platform for astronomical observations9, using a low-frequency radio spectrometer8. The Moon has only a thin ionosphere, so radio-frequency measurements down to 500 kHz are possible at the surface during the day, and at even lower frequencies at night10. The farside is shielded from radio interference from Earth, as well as from solar emissions during the lunar night10, so it is expected to be an excellent location for low-frequency radio astronomy.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of manned and unmanned landings on the Moon to date.
Fig. 2: Landing-site images taken by the Chang’e-4 lander terrain camera and Yutu-2 panoramic camera.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, Beijing, China

    Weiren Wu

  2. Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Chunlai Li, Wei Zuo, Hongbo Zhang, Jianjun Liu, Weibin Wen, Yan Su, Xin Ren, Jun Yan & Ziyuan Ouyang

  3. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, Beijing, China

    Dengyun Yu

  4. Institute of Tracking and Communication Technology, Beijing, China

    Guangliang Dong

  5. National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Chi Wang

  6. China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, China

    Zezhou Sun

  7. Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China

    Enhai Liu

  8. Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, China

    Jianfeng Yang

  9. Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, China

    Ziyuan Ouyang

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  1. Weiren Wu
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Correspondence to Chunlai Li.

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Wu, W., Li, C., Zuo, W. et al. Lunar farside to be explored by Chang’e-4. Nat. Geosci. 12, 222–223 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0341-7

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