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Yutu-2, the autonomous rover launched from China's Chang’e-4, has sent back photographs of a bizarre ‘gel like’ substance on the surface of the Moon during its exploration of the rarely-photographed far side.

The discovery was made on July 28, but details are only now beginning to emerge from the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre.

The Chang'e-4 team was preparing to power down the robot rover as part of a regular ‘nap’ to protect its electronics from the harsh radiation and high temperatures while the Sun was directly overhead.

As they did so, one of the supervising scientists spotted a small crater that seemed to have a strangely shiny appearance.

So far, mission scientists haven't been able to determine what the substance is. All the information that has so far been released says that it is "gel-like" and has an "unusual colour".



The surface of the Moon is a near-vacuum, and temperatures can reach 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius).

There is no known substance that can remain a gel under these kinds of conditions.



One possibility is that an object smashed into the Moon with enough force to turn part of its surface into glass.

Scientists have previously confirmed the existence of ancient deposits of ice in the darkest and coldest parts of the Moon’s polar regions.

The team of researchers, led by Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University and Richard Elphic from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, used data from India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to identify the unique spectral signature of ice. These deposits, however, are deep within shadowed craters that never receive direct sunlight.

This discovery made it more possible that humans could one day live on the moon – as the ice could be processed not only into drinking water but also rocket fuel.

Getting cargo and even humans to the Moon could become easier if groundbreaking 'space elevator' design proposed by at researchers Columbia University and Cambridge University is adopted by NASA.

The far side of the Moon is the hemisphere of the Moon that always faces away from Earth. It’s popularly known as the ‘dark’ side because it’s mysterious, rather than actually dark.

The dark side was first photographed by the Russian probe Luna 3 in 1959. The Chang'e-4 probe made the first landing on the dark side in January of this year.

