Space reveals that the far side of the moon was once a vast, glowing ocean of magma, according to samples retrieved by a Chinese lunar lander:
The Chang’e 6 mission launched in early May 2024, landed in the vast South Pole-Aitken (SPA), and returned to Earth with 4 pounds and 4.29 ounces (1,935.3 grams) of the first-ever samples from the moon’s far side in late June.
New research from scientists with the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and published in the journal Science found that sample analysis backs up an established model of the moon as a global liquid magma ocean in the early days after its formation and likely lasted for tens to hundreds of millions of years.
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[S]ome of the material in the Chang’e 6 samples deviated from those of the Apollo missions in terms of the ratio of certain Uranium and Lead isotopes. Explaining this, the paper proposes that the gigantic impact which formed the roughly 1,600 mile (2,500 kilometers) wide SPA basin around 4.2 billion years ago modified the chemical and physical properties of the moon’s mantle in this region.