{"id":376764,"date":"2026-10-18T13:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T13:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/?p=376764"},"modified":"2026-10-18T13:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T13:47:12","slug":"uncommon-and-extremely-magnetic-iron-allotrope-found-in-lunar-samples-from-chinas-change-6-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/?p=376764","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon and Extremely Magnetic Iron Allotrope Found in Lunar Samples from China&#8217;s Chang&#8217;e 6 Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"byline meta\">By <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chemistryworld.com\/ada-mcvean\/500495.bio\" rel=\"author\" class=\"bylinePicture\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chemistryworld.com\/ada-mcvean\/500495.bio\" rel=\"author\">Ada McVean<\/a><\/span><span class=\"date\" data-date-timezone=\"{&quot;publishdate&quot;: &quot;2026-10-09T08:59:00&quot;,&quot;format&quot;: &quot;D MMMM YYYY&quot;}\">2026-10-09T08:59:00<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<p>Initial identification of \u03b3 iron \u2013 typically only stable at temperatures exceeding 900\u00b0C \u2013 on the moon<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"synopsis-access\">\n<p>Samples retrieved by China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 6 lunar mission from impact craters have been found to contain \u03b3-iron \u2013 an allotrope that usually remains stable only above 912\u00b0C. Scientists theorize that the magnetic fields detected in these particles might have originated from lunar impacts and could illuminate the regions of particularly high magnetic intensity on the moon.<\/p>\n<p>Discussions about the possibility of the moon once possessing a liquid metal core that could produce strong magnetic fields, often referred to as a dynamo, and the duration of its existence have surged since the discovery of magnetized Apollo mission samples. This has given rise to the concept of a historical lunar dynamo, as noted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sas.rochester.edu\/ees\/people\/faculty\/tarduno_john\/index.html\">John Tarduno<\/a>, a geophysicist from the University of Rochester in the US who was not part of the study. \u2018However, there\u2019s always been this persistent question \u2026 the lunar core is small, and it\u2019s very challenging to create a long-lasting magnetic field in that small core.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ada McVean2026-10-09T08:59:00 Initial identification of \u03b3 iron \u2013 typically only stable at temperatures exceeding 900\u00b0C \u2013 on the moon Samples retrieved by China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 6 lunar mission from impact craters have been found to contain \u03b3-iron \u2013 an allotrope that usually remains stable only above 912\u00b0C. Scientists theorize that the magnetic fields detected in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[174],"class_list":["post-376764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-source-chemistryworld-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=376764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/376765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=376764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=376764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=376764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}