Chinese scientists revealed in the journal Science Advances that they have explored the subsurface of the far side of the moon, finding that its structure is “primarily made up of low-loss, highly porous, granular materials with embedded boulders of different sizes.”
The exploration was done by China’s lunar rover Yutu-2 which soft-landed on the far side of the moon on January 2, 2019. During the first two lunar days, the Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) onboard the Yutu-2 probed 40 meters below the site of China’s Chang’e-4 moon lander.
The scientists separated the subsurface images sent by the LRP into three substrata. According to the paper, the shallower subsurface layer, which is 12 meters deep, is formed by sporadic large rocks. The second layer, which is 12-24 meters deep, is composed of rocks, with those at depth much more unequal in terms of both rock distribution and size than those on upper part. The bottom stratum, the paper said, sees the boulder density distribution decrease considerably.
Due to a weakened signal, the LPR did not explore any deeper. The scientists predicted that the top basaltic layer of the subsurface should be deeper than 40 meters.
Old Version
