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Provenance and evolution of lunar regolith at the Chang’e-6 sampling site

Nature Astronomy volume 9, pages 813–823 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

China’s Chang’e-6 (CE-6) mission successfully returned the first lunar samples from the South Pole–Aitken basin on the Moon’s farside. Determining the provenance and evolution of the samples will play a crucial role in guiding effective laboratory analyses. Here we conduct a comprehensive search for source impact craters of the CE-6 samples on global, regional and local scales, and systematically model the formation, migration, mixing and maturation of regolith in the landing region driven by continuous bombardment and solar wind irradiation. A catalogue of 1,674 major source craters with ejecta source depths of up to 3 km was established, which cumulatively delivered materials 53.4 ± 15.7 cm thick to the CE-6 landing site. The returned samples are estimated to comprise ~93.3% local basalts, 6.1% South Pole–Aitken basin materials that are likely to contain mantle components and 0.6% highland feldspathic materials from outside the South Pole–Aitken basin. Modelled elemental abundance depth profiles show that the exotic materials are primarily concentrated at depths of 2.5–3 m, with a portion within the sampling depth of 1 m. The estimated exposure time in the top 1 mm is \({2.1}_{-0.9}^{+1.1}\,{\rm{Myr}}\) for the surficial scooped samples and shorter for deeper drilled samples. These findings establish a crucial foundation for CE-6 sample analysis and interpretation, offering key insights into the provenance of exotic materials and the space weathering process on the Moon’s farside.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of 1,674 source impact craters of the CE-6 samples.
Fig. 2: Ejecta source depths of source impact craters.
Fig. 3: Fractions of local and exotic materials in the CE-6 samples.
Fig. 4: Elemental abundance profiles of the lunar regolith at the CE-6 landing site.
Fig. 5: Exposure history of lunar regolith at the CE-6 landing region.

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Data availability

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera and SELENE-LRO merged digital elevation model data are available at the NASA Planetary Data System Geosciences Node at https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/dataserv/moon.html. The Kaguya Multiband Imager and Terrain Camera data can be accessed at https://darts.isas.jaxa.jp/app/pdap/selene/. The Th abundance data from Lunar Prospector are available at https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/lro/lola.htm. The data derived in this study are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14963665 (ref. 68). Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant number 12173004. This is Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory, Peking University, contribution 30.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Mingwei Zhang, Wenzhe Fa & Bojun Jia

  2. State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China

    Wenzhe Fa

  3. Research Institute of Extraterrestrial Material at Peking University (RIEMPKU), Beijing, China

    Wenzhe Fa

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  1. Mingwei Zhang
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  2. Wenzhe Fa
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Contributions

Conceptualization: W.F. Data acquisition: M.Z. and B.J. Formal analysis: M.Z. and W.F. Investigation: M.Z., W.F. and B.J. Methodology: M.Z. and W.F. Writing: M.Z. and W.F. Funding acquisition: W.F.

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Correspondence to Wenzhe Fa.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Geological context of the CE-6 landing region.

a, The SPA basin, Mg-pyroxene annulus, and SPACA boundaries are outlined by the green, purple and pink curves, respectively. The inner and outer rings of the Apollo basin are depicted in white dashed curves. b, The five mare basalt units within the Apollo basin are depicted in blue curves. The red star shows the CE-6 landing site in both panels.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Reflectance characteristics of impact craters with different degradation stages.

a, a fresh (upper) and degraded (lower) impact crater in a LROC NAC image (ID: M166854798L). b, Histogram of the reflectance for two impact craters in panel a.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Elemental abundance of all the 1674 source craters.

(a) FeO, (b) TiO2, and (c) Mg#. The color represents the thickness of ejecta delivered to the CE-6 landing site and the size of the circles increases with increasing crater diameter.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 The modeled regolith evolution process over a 2 km×2 km area across the CE-6 landing site.

a-b, Modeled (a) topography and (b) regolith thickness at present from one typical realization. c, Histogram of regolith thickness with a 0.1 m bin size from all the 400 simulations. The blue and red lines show the median and mean thickness, respectively. d, Growth dynamics of regolith thickness from all the 400 simulations. Upper panel: the mean, median, and quartiles of regolith thickness with time. The shaded regions show the mean difference between each individual simulation and the average of all the 400 simulations. Lower panel: the mean growth rate of lunar regolith generated by primary (light green line) and secondary (pink line) craters. The peaks in pink correspond to the formation of large craters outside the landing area, which are labeled except for the unnamed craters.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 The observed and modeled crater populations within the CE-6 landing region of 2 km across.

a, Size-frequency distribution of the observed craters (red dots). b, Size-frequency distributions of the modeled primary (red dots) and secondary (blue dots) craters. The black line represents the Neukum production function of 2.4 Ga.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 6 The modeled regolith exposure time at various depths based on a representative model realization.

a, Surface, b, 10 cm, c, 20 cm, d, 30 cm, e, 40 cm, and f, 50 cm. The red star represents the CE-6 landing site.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Evolution of mean exposure time of the surficial regolith layer within the simulation area from 2.4 Ga to present.

The gray line shows the result of each individual simulation and the red line represents the mean value. The shaded region shows the mean difference between each individual realization and the average of all the 400 simulations.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 8 Distribution of magnetic field strength at lunar surface.

The red curves show swirl regions. The white curve and circles show the boundary of the SPA basin and the identified major source craters. The red star shows the CE-6 landing site.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Distribution of the optical maturity parameter (OMAT) over a 2 km×2 km area across the CE-6 (left) and CE-5 (right) landing sites.

The OMAT is calculated from the Kaguya MI data (∼14 m/pixel) using the algorithm of Lemelin et al. The yellow star represents the CE-6 and CE-5 landing sites.

Extended Data Table 1 Major source craters of the CE-6 samples at the global scale
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Texts 1 and 2, Figs. 1–7, Tables 1 and 2, and references.

Supplementary Data 1

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Supplementary Data 2

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Zhang, M., Fa, W. & Jia, B. Provenance and evolution of lunar regolith at the Chang’e-6 sampling site. Nat Astron 9, 813–823 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02525-7

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