Chinese Scientists Find Moon's Far Side "Colder" than Near Side

Chinese Scientists Find Moon's Far Side "Colder" than Near Side
FriendsofNASA.org: Chinese scientists found the far side of the Moon is colder deep within its interior than the side that always faces Earth. They discovered that the rocks were formed from lava deep within the Moon's interior at a temperature of about 1,100 degrees Celsius, about 100 degrees Celsius cooler than existing samples from the near side.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, come from an analysis of the rock fragments collected by China's Chang'e-6 spacecraft in 2024 from the far side of the Moon.

The research team from the China National Nuclear Corporation, Beijing University and Shandong University, confirmed that the sampled rocks were about 2.8 billion years old.

Scientists also compared remote sensing data of the Chang'e-6 landing site on the far side with equivalent data from the near side. The results showed a difference of 70 degrees Celsius, closely matching the results of the sample analysis.

"The temperature of the lunar mantle on the far side of the Moon is lower than that on the near side. The basalt samples we collected were formed about 2.8 billion years ago. So the temperatures we have calculated reflect conditions in the past, not the present. They reflect conditions deep inside the Moon—the lunar mantle, not the lunar surface," said He Sheng, a researcher of the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology of China National Nuclear Corporation.

China's Chang'e-6 mission in 2024 accomplished humanity's first-ever sampling from the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon. The Chang'e-5 probe landed in 2020 on the northwest region of the Ocean of Storms.

Video Credit: CCTV
Duration: 1 minute
Release Date: Oct. 6, 2025

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