During the 2023 Space Day of China, CGTN's science journalist Yang Zhao visited the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) to have a closer look at lunar soil and see how it inspires scientists and artists at the same time.

Shen Ji, associate professor at USTC's GeoEvolution Lab, told us that the rocks and debris brought back by China were the first lunar material carried to Earth since the U.S. Apollo missions in the 1970s. They brought back basalt dating back around three billion years and people speculated that by that time the moon was no longer dynamic. 

By the end of the 20th century, the Apollo samples had been studied very thoroughly and very little new progress was made. But then the Chang'e-5 touched down in an area that had never been visited before, finding evidence of much later volcanic activity and giving us a new understanding of the Moon. 

The Chang'e Mission allowed Chinese scientists to pin a date on one of the moon's last volcanic eruptions two billion years ago. The research was published in the journal Science. 

But what those moon rocks attracted are not just scientists.

Sun Yue, an art expo curator for the  lunar soil research achievements held at USTC, told CGTN that the attraction and collaboration between artists and scientists has always existed. 

The new moon rocks brought back stimulates the artists to present and popularize the latest and most cutting-edge scientific achievements in a new way, Sun added.

For example, there were pictures taken by a scientific instrument called a polarized light microscope, under which the lunar soil is no longer grey dirt. Viewers could see a very beautiful and colorful world inside the lunar soil. And these artworks would also be useful for scientists, for the light resolution can present different types of particles and minerals in different colors.

As we can see, these are ways that moon rocks inspire both scientists and artists. Lunar rocks and debris tell us about the secret of our satellite and boost public understanding of sciences at the same time.