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Space
Space
Science
Samantha Mathewson

Our moon's 2 sides are more different than we thought, lunar samples reveal

The crater-riddled far side of the moon seen by the Orion spacecraft.

Lunar samples reveal the far side of the moon, hidden from Earth's view, may have a cooler interior than the near side.

China's Chang'e 6 mission returned the first-ever samples from the far side of the moon in June 2024. A recent analysis of these fragments, collected from a vast crater inside the moon's South Pole–Aitken (SPA) basin, found that the samples were about 180°F (100°C) cooler than near-side samples gathered by NASA's Apollo missions.

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