The bombardment history on the lunar farside revealed by <sup>40</sup> Ar/ <sup>39</sup> Ar geochronology of Chang’e-6 impact melt rocks
The reconstruction of the lunar bombardment history is pivotal to understanding the evolution of Earth-Moon system. So far, it heavily depends on geochronological studies of lunar nearside samples but lacks direct sample constraints from the lunar farside. Here, we present 28 single-clast 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages of impact melt rocks returned by the Chang’e-6 mission. They reveal impact events spanning from ∼4.33 to ∼1.13 billion years (Ga). In particular, three melt clasts date to ∼4.16 Ga, consistent with the recent dating of the Apollo basin, and only two ages fall at 4.0 to 3.7 Ga. The presence of older ages (>4.0 Ga) and lack of predominant age around ∼3.9 Ga suggest that the lunar farside bombardment was not dominated by a cataclysmic spike but by a smooth long-term decline punctuated by later impacts.
Authors
- Peng‐Li He
- Xiaoping Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3203-039X)
- F. F. Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7394-8419)
- Mang Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8904-7697)
- Qing Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0714-4651)
- Hua‐Ning Qiu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4971-3664)
- Fei Su (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1636-7259)
- Jingyou Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4199-5089)
- Wanfeng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6481-6162)
- Ming Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6048-0155)
- Huaiyu He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4887-5274)
- J Zhang
- Zexian Cui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9293-5369)
- Yan‐Qiang Zhang
- Fred Jourdan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5626-4521)
- Xiujuan Bai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8997-8958)
- Qin Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7811-8390)
- Liekun Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4881-6389)
- Yi‐Gang Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9531-7208)
- Le Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0382-5863)
- Le Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9161-0653)
- De‐wen Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6164-9768)
- Bo Wei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1103-4559)
- Yi-Xiang Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5246-5497)
- Jun-Jie Wang
- Yonghua Cao
- Ying-De Jiang
- Jun-Jie Li
Institutions
- Planetary Science Institute (US)
- Yangtze University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Curtin University (AU)
- Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry (CN)
- China University of Geosciences (CN)
- Institute of Geology and Geophysics (AZ)
- Institute of Geology and Geophysics (CN)
- Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology (CN)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- China Earthquake Administration (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2026-07-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aee8718
- Primary Topic
- Planetary Science and Exploration
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences