China is about to collect the first moon rocks since the 1970s
The lunar samples will come from a site that was volcanically active relatively recently
![team members of China’s Chang’e-5 mission celebrating the spacecraft’s launch](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/113020_lg_change5_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1)
Team members of China’s Chang’e-5 mission celebrated the spacecraft’s launch on November 24, 2020. The mission aims to return the first samples from the moon since 1976.
Jin Liwang/Xinhua via Getty Images