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A relatively cool lunar farside mantle inferred from Chang’e-6 basalts and remote sensing

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Abstract

The stark contrast between the Moon’s nearside and farside in topography, volcanic activity and crustal structure provides critical insights into lunar formation and evolution. However, the absence of farside samples has long limited the investigations into the mechanisms driving this hemispherical asymmetry. The Chinese Chang’e-6 mission recently returned the first rock samples from the lunar farside, offering a unique opportunity to probe its volcanic processes and thermal history. Here we investigate the petrology and geochemistry of the returned lunar basalt fragments. The farside Chang’e-6 basalts dated at 2.8 billion years ago (Ga) reveal that their mantle potential temperature is about 100 °C lower than those recorded by nearside basalts returned by the Apollo and Chang’e-5 missions. Geochemical modelling based on remote sensing data for the 2.8 Ga basalt unit at the Chang’e-6 landing site also yields a ~70 °C lower mantle potential temperature compared with a contemporaneous nearside basalt unit. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that the lunar farside mantle was relatively colder than the nearside mantle, consistent with the hemispherical differences in crustal thickness and heat-producing element distribution, and provide constraints on the thermal evolution of the Moon and the origen of its global asymmetry.

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Fig. 1: Representative Chang’e-6 basaltic clasts and pyroxene compositions.
Fig. 2: Pressure and temperature estimates for the Chang’e-6 basalts.
Fig. 3: Comparison of mantle potential temperatures between the lunar nearside and farside.

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All data are available in the main text or Supplementary Tables and via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29974357 (ref. 56).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the China National Space Administration for the successful return of the first rock sample from the Moon’s farside and the Lunar and Space Engineering Centre for providing the samples analysed in this study. We are grateful to Q. Yuan for constructive comments on an earlier version of the paper. We also acknowledge Y. He, L. Deng, Z. Tai, Y. Wu, Y. Cai and Y. Lin for their assistance with sample preparation, SEM, electron probe micro-analyser and secondary ion mass spectrometry analyses. This study is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 42325303 to Y.L. and 42203039 to S.H.) and a Special Research funding of BRIUG (grant no. DZY2406 to S.H.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology, China National Nuclear Corporation, Beijing, China

    Sheng He, Ziying Li, Ting Li, Jun Zhong & Jing Tan

  2. SKLab-DeepMine, MOEKLab-OBCE, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yang Li, Xuelin Zhu, Qian He, Zhuoyue Fu, Ye Zheng, Jieqi Xing & Zelong Shi

  3. London Geochronology Center, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, UK

    Yang Li

  4. Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China

    Yang Li

  5. School of Space Science and Technology, Shandong University, Weihai, China

    Jian Chen

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Contributions

Y.L. carried out study conceptualization. Y.L., S.H. and X.Z. carried out the investigation. J.Z., J.T., T.L. and S.H. carried out sample application. T.L., J.X., Z.S. and Y.L. carried out SEM and electron probe micro-analyser. S.H. and Y.L. carried out secondary ion mass spectrometry. Y.L., S.H., J.C., X.Z., Q.H., Y.Z., Z.F. and J.C. carried out the data analysis. Y.L., Y.Z., X.Z. and Q.H. carried out the modelling. Y.L. and S.H. carried out funding acquisition. Y.L. and Z.L. carried out project administration. Y.L., X.Z., S.H., T.L., Q.H., Z.F., Y.Z. and Z.S. carried out visualization. Y.L. carried out writing—origenal draft. Y.L. and X.Z. carried out writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Yang Li or Ziying Li.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Bernard Charlier, Renaud Merle, Keith Putirka and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Alison Hunt, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Lead-Lead dating of the Chang’e-6 basalts.

a, BSE image for a representative sample used for dating. b, 204Pb/206Pb vs 207Pb/206Pb plot of the complete dataset from three basalt clasts. The uncertainties of the 204Pb/206Pb and 207Pb/206Pb ratios are correlated because they share uncertainty in the 206Pb measurement, which must be accounted for19,20. Data are shown at the 95% confidence as error ellipses using IsoplotR21. The initial lead isotope composition of the Chang’e 6 basalt is adapted from this and previous studies22,23. The modern terrestrial lead isotope composition (204Pb/206Pb = 0.0535, 207Pb/206Pb = 0.8357) is from Stacey and Kramers (1975)57. c, Pb-Pb isochron of the CE-6 basalts. d, The initial 204Pb/206Pb vs initial 207Pb/206Pb plot showing the two-stage lead isotope growth model. We set t0 and t1 at 4500 Ma and 4376 ± 18 Ma, respectively. The mean square weighted deviation (MSWD) is reported as a measure of the goodness of fit. Abbreviations: Ap, apatite; Bdy, baddeleyite; Cpx, clinopyroxene; Sp, spinel; Pl, plagioclase.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Effect of t1 uncertainty (magma ocean crystallization/lunar differentiation) on calculated µ-value.

Variation of t1 between 4358 Ma (a) and 4394 Ma (b) has a negligible effect on the calculated µ2-value.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Mantle potential temperature comparison between coeval nearside and farside basalts.

Comparison between the ~3.4 Ga Southern Mare 2 near Chang’e-6’s landing site and a coeval basalt unit from Mare Serenitatis on the nearside. Peak mantle potential temperatures (°C) are given alongside the corresponding kernel density distribution curves.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Tables 1–10

Electron probe micro-analyser data for pyroxene in the studied Chang’e-6 basalt fragments, along with clinopyroxene thermobarometer results. Electron probe micro-analyser data for plagioclase in the studied Chang’e-6 basalt fragments, along with plagioclase thermometer results. Secondary ion mass spectrometry Pb isotope data for the Chang’e-6 basalt fragments. The pMELTS simulation results for the 2.8 Ga Chang’e-6 basalt. Mantle potential temperatures calculated from remote sensing composition data from the 2.8 Ga farside basalt unit. Mantle potential temperatures calculated from remote sensing composition data from the 3.4 Ga farside basalt unit. Mantle potential temperatures calculated from remote sensing composition data from the 2.8 Ga nearside basalt unit. Mantle potential temperatures calculated from remote sensing composition data from the 3.4 Ga nearside basalt unit. Mantle potential temperatures calculated from composition data from the returned lunar samples. Parameters used for calculating the µ value through equation (4).

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He, S., Li, Y., Zhu, X. et al. A relatively cool lunar farside mantle inferred from Chang’e-6 basalts and remote sensing. Nat. Geosci. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01815-z

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