China's Chang'e 5 capsule lands on Earth with the first moon samples in 44 years

A capsule loaded with lunar samples landed in Inner Mongolia on Dec. 16 at 12:59 p.m. EST, capping China's historic Chang'e 5 mission.

Image Credit: CNSA

The last such moon delivery came courtesy of the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission, which returned about 170 grams of material in 1976. Chang'e 5's haul should be much larger — about 2 kilograms. With Chang'e 5's apparent success — mission teams still need to inspect and assess the returned sample — China has become just the third nation to bring moon material to Earth. The other two are the Soviet Union and the United States, which hauled home about 382 kg of lunar rocks and dirt during the six Apollo surface missions between 1969 and 1972.

How will the Sun die ? | Death of a Star | Space Library

The sun has been shining for approximately 4.6 billion years, but like all stars, it will eventually come to an end. Although the sun's demise is not imminent, its death is a natural part of the life cycle of stars, and scientists have been studying it for decades. iStock When the sun runs out of fuel, it will begin to cool and contract. The sun's outer layers will expand, causing it to become a red giant. During this phase, the sun will grow to be much larger than its current size, swallowing up the inner planets, including Earth. This event is predicted to occur in about 5 billion years from now, based on current estimates. Eventually, the sun will run out of fuel completely, and it will collapse in on itself. This will cause a massive explosion, known as a supernova, which will release a vast amount of energy into the universe. The sun's core will be compressed to form a white dwarf, a small, extremely dense star that will slowly cool over bill...

A Signal from Proxima Centauri and the Existence of Alien Life.

The 64-meter Parkes radio telescope in Australia picked up the faint signal while observing Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf 4.25 light-years from Earth. This feeble star has at least two planets, one of which is a super-Earth with at least 1.17 Earth masses that orbits in the star’s habitable zone. ESA/Hubble & NASA Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our Sun. It is a small, low-mass star located 4.2465 light-years away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the "nearest [star] of Centaurus". This object was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes. Distance to Earth: 4.2...

Selfie from Mars

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at "Namib Dune," where the rover's activities included scuffing into the dune with a wheel and scooping samples of sand for laboratory analysis. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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