Exhibition of Chang'e-5 lunar sampling opens to public

An exhibition featuring Chang'e-5 lunar samples was open to the public in Beijing on Saturday.

In December 2020, the Chang'e-5 probe brought back the country's first samples collected from the moon, which marked a successful conclusion to China's three-step lunar exploration program of orbiting, landing and returning samples, which began in 2004.

"It is the first time in the country that a long-term science exhibition has been held on the theme of lunar soil sampling and groundbreaking research by Chinese scientists. We have visualized a large amount of scientific research data of the lunar sampling for popular science display, striving to make the exhibition scientific, artistic and highly valuable for science popularization," said Lin Xiao, deputy head of the Beijing Planetarium.

In addition to 0.6 grams of lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e-5, the exhibition also showcases moon rocks collected by Apollo 17 and lunar meteorites from Northwest Africa, offering valuable insights into the moon's formation and evolution.

"Chang'e stone," a new mineral discovered and named from the Chang'e-5 lunar samples is also on display at the exhibition. It is the first new lunar mineral discovered by Chinese scientists and the sixth overall discovered by humanity.

"China is vigorously developing planetary science, which is a comprehensive discipline and manifestation of national strength. The carefully selected landing area of the Chang'e-5, the meticulous research on the lunar samples brought back by the mission, and the research results have contributed to a vastly improved understanding of mineral species over the Apollo era. There are 6,000 kinds of minerals on the Earth and only about 100 on the moon. It's very difficult to discover a new mineral on the moon that we don't have on the Earth, so this is a very important discovery," said Li Qiuli, researcher with the Institute of Geology and Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Exhibition of Chang'e-5 lunar sampling opens to public

Exhibition of Chang'e-5 lunar sampling opens to public

The United Nations has made every effort to uphold global peace, advance shared development, and foster societal advancement, said Chen Xu, China's permanent representative to the UN Office in Geneva.

Speaking in an exclusive interview to China Global Television Network (CGTN), Chen commented on the role the UN has played in 2024.

"I believe the United Nations has tried its best to preserve world peace, to promote common development and social progress. So the balance sheet, I should say, is somewhat mixed. On the one hand, it brings people together to challenges and the difficulties to find the solutions. For instance, it adopted a number of General Assembly resolutions on Middle East and Palestine and quite a number of occasions with overwhelming majority. While in the same time, it's really a pity that the Security Council fails to make decisive moves for a ceasefire and for humanitarian relief," he said.

In addition, Chen noted that the UN Office in Geneva has its unique role, and China has delivered a positive record in human rights protection this year.

"Indeed, Geneva is such an important and unique platform. Compared with New York, it's more flat and is spread out to all sectors of our daily life. So we have to look after almost 40 international agencies. We put forward our initiatives, including in the last session of the Human Rights Council, we offered two draft resolutions which were eventually adopted by consensus. One is an empowerment of women. The other one is the accessibility to all. And I was very much encouraged by the larger co-sponsorship on the empowerment of women. And then we have another important draft resolution that is the peaceful use of technologies. It was adopted in New York, but the consultation was conducted here in Geneva," he said.

UN tries its best to preserve world peace: Chinese ambassador in Geneva