China shares rare lunar rocks with US scientists

The China National Space Administration shared rare lunar rocks with US scientists, despite the two countries’ ongoing trade war.

The Chang’e 5 mission was the first to land on the Moon’s far side: Scientists hope the rocks will give insights into lunar formation. The CNSA said they were “a shared treasure for all humanity.”

A US space scientist told the BBC that “international cooperation in science… is the norm” regardless of politics, a point illustrated by a Russian spacecraft taking a US astronaut to the International Space Station this month.

While US-China scientific collaboration has weakened — NASA is not allowed to share its own lunar samples with CNSA — the two nations renewed a key cooperation agreement late last year.