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Saturday, September 21, 2019

We've got new photos of that weird substance China found on the Moon

China's Yutu-2 lunar lander just sent back new images of a strange substance it found near a small crater on the far side of the Moon.

Last month, the team behind the lunar rover claimed it had found a "colored mysterious substance" as described in the rover's diary, which claimed that the material's "shape and color is significantly different from the surrounding lunar soil."

A new post released by the team over the weekend shows new images of the strange substance — though it's unfortunately located in the middle of a crater, making it difficult to reach.

3UYDRUz6BFCPW3XSwNUiSZ 650 80(CNSA/CLEP)

The images were taken by the rover's obstacle-avoidance camera, which makes sure the rover doesn't bump into anything. The red and green shapes in the image above are most likely artifacts of the rover's Visible and Near-Infrared Spectrometer, Space.com reports.

Screen Shot 2019 09 19 at 5.07.25 pm(CNSA/CLEP)

So what is it? The best guess we have so far is that it's a piece of lunar glass that formed during a meteor impact.

It's likely that the Chinese researchers will release more images and spectrometer readings of the mysterious substance in the future.

It will have to — at the very least — wait for the Sun to rise again to continue its investigation. And that's roughly a week from now.

This article was originally published by Futurism. Read the original article.

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#Space | https://sciencespies.com/space/weve-got-new-photos-of-that-weird-substance-china-found-on-the-moon/

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