The Moon and more
Welcome to the fifth Physics World Special Report on China. Brought to you by IOP Publishing, it examines the latest developments in physics in the world’s most populous country.
Half a century ago there were two global space superpowers: the Soviet Union and the US. And when the Apollo 11 mission touched down in July 1969 and Neil Armstrong ventured onto the lunar surface, the race to put the first astronaut on the Moon was finally won by the US. While astronauts have not been back since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the exploration of our nearest neighbour is far from over with the US once again setting an ambitious target to send astronauts to the Moon by 2024.
What has changed since the frantic days of the Apollo and Soviet lunar missions, however, is that Moon missions are now not just confined to a couple of countries. For the past decade, China and India – as well as others – have been launching and planning their own lunar programmes. Although currently focussed to robotic missions, earlier this year China did something that no other nation had done before – put a lander on the side of the Moon that always faces away from Earth, known as the far side.
In this Physics World Special Report, we take an in-depth look at China’s Chang’e-4 mission to the far side, which landed in the Von Kármán crator in the South Pole Aitken Basin on 3 January. This daring mission – a feat once considered “too risky” by NASA – has thrown up some fascinating insights into the composition of the lunar mantel and will undoubtably reveal more over the coming months and years.
Yet China does not just have its sights on space. As outlined in this special report, the country is also forging ahead in synchrotron science, notably through the construction of a major fourth-generation synchrotron radiation facility in Beijing – the fourth synchrotron in China. And earlier this year physicists in China unveiled ambitious plans to build a massive new underground facility in the centre of the country to study gravitational waves and test Einstein’s general theory of relativity to an unprecedented precision.
I hope you enjoy this Physics World Special Report on China and if you have any feedback or ideas for next year’s issue, do get in touch.