Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, May 7, CTOnews.com learned from the official website of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that through systematic material scientific research on Chang'e-5 lunar soil samples, Chinese researchers have discovered many types of lunar glass materials of different origins. More importantly, they also found natural fiberglass for the first time in Chang'e-5 lunar soil.

The research team of glass beads with rotating characteristics such as sphere, ellipsoid and dumbbell in Chang'e-5 lunar soil found that there were glass origins of solid, liquid and gas transition paths on the lunar surface. The melting and rapid cooling of minerals caused by frequent meteorite and micrometeorite impacts on the lunar surface produce various forms of glass materials. including rotating glass beads (spherical, ellipsoidal, dumbbell, etc.), pore structure cement, fluid form sputtering and so on. The glass materials of the impact origin record the multi-scale impact events from thousands of meters to nanometers on the lunar surface, and the shape of the solidified glass depends on the viscosity of the glass-forming liquid dominated by the impact temperature, from which the impact strength of meteorites can be retrieved. In addition to melt cooling glass, there is also a nano-scale amorphous layer on the surface of lunar soil particles. Accurate structure and composition analysis reveals that these nano-amorphous layers have two distinct origins: one is radiation damage induced by solar wind particle injection, which converts crystalline solids into glassy state; the other is thermal evaporation deposition caused by high-speed meteorite impact, which forms amorphous films by vapor deposition on the surface of mineral particles. The widely distributed vapor deposited amorphous layer found in this study clarifies the current controversy about whether there is a sedimentary layer on the surface of Chang'e-5 lunar soil. These glass materials originated from melt cooling, vapor deposition and ion irradiation reproduce the interaction between the lunar surface and the space environment, which is of great significance for understanding the formation and evolution of lunar soil.

It is worth noting that the glass material in Chang'e-5 lunar soil is significantly different from that of Apollo lunar soil. First, the research team first reported the natural presence of fiberglass in Chang'e-5 lunar soil. These glass fibers with ultra-high aspect ratios are formed by the thermoplastic forming of viscous liquids during impact, just as amorphous wires are made by hot drawing in the laboratory. Compared with the glass beads with low aspect ratio, the viscosity of the liquid forming the glass fiber is higher, which means that the corresponding impact temperature and impact rate are lower, reflecting the milder micro-impact events on the lunar surface. These natural glass fibers prove that lunar soil has good glass forming ability and excellent processing properties, and affirm the feasibility of using lunar soil to produce glass building materials from local materials on the lunar surface. it will provide important support for the construction of lunar base in the future. In addition, the research team found that the nano-deposited amorphous layer on the surface of Chang'e-5 lunar soil is much thinner than that of Apollo lunar soil samples, and contains almost no refractory elements and nano-metallic iron particles, only composed of Si and O. This shows that the impact intensity of micrometeorites that gasify lunar surface materials is lower, resulting in less hot vapor produced in each impact event, and the temperature is not low enough to gasify other refractory elements. Together, these features reveal a milder impact environment on the lunar surface of the Chang'e-5 landing area as a whole. This discovery not only successfully explains the contradiction between high weathering degree and low glass content of Chang'e-5 lunar soil, but also has guiding significance for the study of scientific problems such as space weathering, spectral characteristics and water content on the lunar surface of the landing area.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.