LONDON, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The first lunar samples returned to Earth in nearly half a century, collected by China's Chang'e-5 mission, have arrived in Britain on loan.
Professor Mahesh Anand told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Saturday that he was "over the moon" to be chosen as one of a handful of scientists in the world to receive the samples, describing the lunar dust as rarer than gold.
Anand, a professor of planetary science and exploration at Britain's Open University, expressed the hope that this marks the beginning of new space collaboration between China and Britain, and the global scientific community.
"I feel honestly very privileged and really a fortunate person on this planet to have a chance to be given the trust that to work on those samples for the benefit of a science," said Anand.
"It opens up so many possibilities of discoveries and new scientific findings."
In 2020, China's Chang'e-5 mission retrieved samples from the Moon weighing about 1,731 grams, which were the first lunar samples in the world in nearly 50 years.
The British scientist was allocated three samples, each weighing 20 milligrams, carefully selected from different locations on the lunar surface to address specific scientific questions.
"There are two big questions I'm interested in exploring using these samples," said Anand. "One is the understanding of the origin and the formation of the moon itself. The second thing is what can they tell us about the history of elements such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, noble gas in our solar system."
Despite the small size of the samples, Anand explained that his laboratory equipment at Milton Keynes in England can magnify materials up to a million or billion times.
"It means just one single grain that actually could be a millionth of a meter becomes a huge grain when we put it on our machine," he said.
Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom Zheng Zeguang extended his congratulations to Anand on social media, noting: "You are the only scientist in UK who has been loaned the extremely rare material, the moon dust from China."
The ambassador emphasized that "science can only make progress through international exchanges and collaboration" and looked forward to more cooperation between China and Britain.
Anand expressed gratitude for the ambassador's recognition, saying he was amazed to read the message.
"Clearly, this message is intended to the community that is outside China. I take that message on behalf of the entire community that I represent, and I thank, again, the ambassador for sharing his thoughts with us," said Anand.
Anand thanked China for its support and expressed hope for long-term space collaboration.
"I hope that this is the new beginning of a very long-term space collaboration between the British scientists and Chinese scientists, and we can use it as a blueprint for perhaps expanding this to the rest of the world," he said.
The scientist also underscored the importance of scientific collaboration in today's geopolitical climate.
"In the current world order where we have so many conflicts and disagreements, and countries not getting along with each other, I think science, and particularly planetary science, has the ability to bring people together to overcome these differences and challenges."
"Some of these things are so hard and so challenging that if we don't work together, we probably will take forever to actually uncover any new truths about our natural world. I think the science has the power. Science diplomacy could be used more effectively to bring parties together and work for something constructive."
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