China’s space mission Chang’e-5 probe, which successfully returned to Earth on Thursday, has come back with 1,731 grams of samples from the moon, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) informed on Saturday.

According to the space agency, the samples have been transferred to the Chinese research teams.

The researchers will carry out the storage and analytical studies of the country’s first samples collected from the extra-terrestrial object, the CNSA said.

The mission marks a successful conclusion of China’s current three-step lunar exploration programme of orbiting and landing and bringing back samples which began in 2004.

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Notably, this was China’s first attempt to bring the moon samples in over 40 years after the United States sent astronauts to the moon to collect samples.

The Chang’e-5 probe, comprising an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a returner, was launched on November 24, and its lander-ascender combination touched down on the north of the Mons Rumker in Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the moon on December 1.

China in recent years has emerged as a major space power with manned space missions and landing a rover in the dark side of the moon. It is currently building a space station of its own.

Chang’e-5, the third Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon, is the latest in a series of increasingly ambitious missions for Beijing’s space programme.