Moon: Scientists have discovered age of rocks from recent Moon mission

The first Moon rocks to be brought back to Earth in more than 40 years have been found to be almost two billion years old!

The samples which came back from China's Chang'e-5 mission, also suggest that the Moon was volcanically active until more recently than expected.

China launched their unmanned Chang'e-5 mission in December 2020 and the spacecraft touched down on the Moon to collect samples of dust and rock for research.

The mission made China the third country to have retrieved samples from the Moon. The first being the USA in the 1960s and the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

What else did scientists find?

The Chang'e-5 mission landed on the Moon in a place called Oceanus Procellarum, which is an area of solidified lava from an ancient volcanic eruption.

It collected samples from the surface and returned them to Earth for scientists to study.

Researchers found the rocks had formed from magma that erupted about two billion years ago, which is later than other volcanic moon samples that have been previously collected.

Scientists say there must have been something providing heat in the region to explain this late volcanic activity.

Dr Katherine Joy from the University of Manchester told BBC News "Maybe the Moon wobbled back and forth on its orbit, resulting in what we call tidal heating."

"So, a bit like the Moon generates ocean tides on Earth, maybe the gravitational effect of the Earth could stretch and flex the Moon to generate frictional melting."