China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe has safely landed on Earth after a two-month journey to the far side of the Moon and back. The unmanned spacecraft touched down in the Inner Mongolia desert on June 25. It contains some very rare rock and soil samples that were collected after Chang’e-6 landed on the unexplored far side of the Moon.
According to the China National Space Administration, Chang’e-6 used a computer system to check for any obstacles that would be in the way of landing, before touching down on the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin. This is a crater on the side of the Moon that always faces away from Earth, an area that’s hard to reach because it’s really far away and doesn’t have many flat surfaces that are easy to land on. It’s hoped that the Moon rocks will allow scientists to uncover more secrets about how planets are formed.