That mission, and the 2020 Chang’e-5 robotic mission before it, are the first to return lunar rocks to Earth since the 1970s. Together they are building on what scientists learned from Apollo-era missions, helping to unravel mysteries about how the Moon was formed and why it looks the way it does today, and providing clues about our solar system’s history.
But big puzzles remain, such as why the far side of the Moon—the half that always faces away from Earth—is so radically different from the near side. And what is behind the surprising finding that lunar volcanoes may have been active much more recently than previously thought? “The more
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