Chinese Lunar Mission Chang'e-6 Makes Patriotic Gesture On Moon's Surface

In a recent lunar mission, a Chinese spacecraft has left behind a patriotic mark on the moon’s surface, igniting a wave of national pride among Chinese citizens.

What Happened: Chang'e-6, China’s first mission to retrieve samples from the far side of the moon, etched a mark resembling the Chinese character “Zhong” on the lunar surface before it returned to Earth, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Zhong is the first part of Zhongguo, the Chinese-language name for China. It can also mean center in Chinese. The sign was proudly showcased on Weibo by Chinese broadcaster CCTV, sparking a surge of nationalistic comments on the popular social media platform.

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Why It Matters: The Chang’e-6 mission, launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan Island, aimed to collect and return lunar samples, marking China as the first nation to attempt such a feat. This mission followed the successful Chang'e-5 in 2020, which was the first human retrieval of lunar samples in 44 years.

China’s advancements in space exploration have garnered international attention. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk praised China’s space program as being “far more advanced than most people realize.”

Leaving a mark on the moon’s surface isn’t a new phenomenon. U.S. astronauts, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, left various items on the moon, including American flags and a family photo of astronaut Charles Duke. Alan Shepard, the first American in space, left two golf balls on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. In December 1972, the last Apollo astronaut on the moon, Gene Cernan, left his daughter’s initials in the lunar dust.

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Image via Shutterstock

This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari