Extremely rare moon dust borrowed from China shown in the UK

The first Moon rock samples returned to Earth for almost 50 years arrived in the UK – on loan from China.

The tiny dust grains are now locked in a safe in high security facility in Milton Keynes – we first looked at them.

Professor Mahesh Anand is the only scientist in the UK who borrowed this extremely rare material, which he describes as “more precious than the golden dust.”

“No one in the world had access to Chinese patterns, so it is a great honor and a great privilege,” he says.

After the laser grinded and glued the dust, the team of Prof. Ananda hopes to answer the basic questions about how the moon was formed and in the early years of planet Earth.

Inside the dust grain could be proof that supports the theory of scientists that the moon was made of debris thrown out when the Earth hit the planet of Mars 4.5 billion years ago.

China collected rocks on its space mission of Chang’e 5 2020 when it landed on a volcanic area called Mons Rümker.

A robot hand drilled into the soil to collect 2 kg of material, which was returned to the ground in a capsule that landed in the inner Mongolia.

It was the first successful lunar sampling of the Soviet mission in 1976 and catapulted China in a leading position in the new space race.

Now, following the long tradition of global cooperation between space scientists, China first approved seven samples of international researchers to make new discoveries.

The tiny bottles were handed over to Profa Ananda at the glamorous ceremony in Beijing last week, where he met colleagues from Russia, Japan, Pakistan and Europe.

“It was almost like a parallel universe – and China is so far ahead of us in terms of their investment in space programs,” he said.

He returned to the UK with a precious cargo in the safest place he could think of – hand luggage.

In his laboratory at the Open University of Milton Keynes, we step on the sticky rugs to clean the shoes and wear plastic gloves, dresses, hair nets and hoods.

The environment within this high security room must be flawless to prevent contamination.

If earthly material is mixed with these alien specifications, this could permanently ruin the analysis of prof. Anand’s team.

Let’s go down to the floor in front of a series of safe. Profa Anand unlocks one and carefully removed a bag with a three -tank sized box with a box that could retain a necklace.

It is firmly firmly into each of them a perpetual bottle of dust dark gray at the bottom.

It’s the moon dust.

It looks insidious, but it is humble to think about your cosmic journey.

A prof. Anand says they don’t need more than this 60 mg.

“Here, it’s a little powerful. Believe me, it’s enough to take us busy for years because we’re specializing in working on the micro,” he adds.

In the laboratory down the hall, Kay Knight technician will be the first person to actually work on cereals when the bottles are opened.

For 36 years he has also cut ground pieces of rocks, but this will be the first time working on something straight from the lunar surface.

“I’m extremely excited,” she says, after showing us how to cut meteorites using a diamond blade.

“But I’m nervous – there are not many samples and they can’t really go and everything is easy to get easy. This is a high role,” she adds.

After preparing patterns, they will enter two more laboratories.

In one we see a machine with a intricate network of countless pipes, valves and wires.

Sasha Verchovskyhas technician has been building it since the early 1990s. It shows us a small cylinder where dust specifications can be heated to 1400 Celsius. This will help them draw carbon, nitrogen and Nobel gases.

This is completely unique and is one of the reasons that prof. Anand believes his laboratory has been chosen to receive rare samples.

James Malley, a research technician, controls a machine that can determine how much oxygen is contained in dust specifications.

Shows us the test what they will do.

“I’ll hit that grain on a laser platter,” he says, showing the scene magnified on a computer screen.

“They will start to shine and you will see that he melts inwards,” he says.

The team is one year old to complete its research. In the end, their search for answers will probably eventually destroy the samples.

But China went beyond the Chang’e 5 mission.

In 2024, his launch of Chang’e 6 returned the first samples on the other side of the month. It is a deeply mysterious place that could have evidence of long flow of volcanic lava.

“I hope this is the beginning of the long -term collaboration between China and international scientists,” says prof. Anand.

“Many of us have built our careers working on patterns that have returned Apollo missions, and I think this is a fantastic tradition to follow. I hope other countries will follow that,” he adds.