Produced by: Tarun Mishra Designed by: Manoj Kumar
China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft, alongside an ESA probe, has yielded significant scientific results from the Moon’s far side even before returning with collected samples.
Photo: CNSA
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Negative Ions at the Lunar Surface (NILS) instrument, carried by Chang’e-6, detected negative ions on the lunar surface, produced by interactions with the solar wind.
NILS is the first European instrument to land on the Moon. This milestone marks a major scientific achievement and a successful lunar cooperation with China, as stated by Neil Melville, ESA’s technical officer for the experiment.
Unlike Earth, the Moon lacks a magnetic field and has a thin exosphere, resulting in different interactions with the solar wind. When solar wind strikes the Moon, it releases secondary particles, including positive, negative, and neutral ions.
Detecting negative ions, which are short-lived and cannot reach orbit, required placing the NILS instrument close to the lunar surface. This is a first for a particle detector.
NILS began collecting data 280 minutes after landing. Initial data collection sessions were brief due to communication blackouts and instrument overheating, yet NILS stayed within thermal limits and successfully gathered valuable data.
The discovery of negative ions on the Moon’s far side enhances our understanding of the lunar surface environment and paves the way for exploring negative ion populations on other airless bodies in the Solar System.
Chang’e-6 is now en route back to Earth, bringing fresh samples from the Moon’s unexplored far side, specifically the South Pole-Aitken Basin, to further scientific research.