China has allowed six countries, including the United States, to study moon rocks leased from its Chang'e-5 lunar mission in 2020.
Shan Zhongde of the China National Space Administration told local media that the moon rocks were “a common asset for all mankind.”
The United States did not respond to this proposal because Congress limited NASA's cooperation with China.
China's space agency has named Brown University and the State University of New York at Stonybrook as two of seven institutions approved to borrow lunar samples collected by China.
Other organisations studying the rocks include Osaka University in Japan, the Paris Institute of Planetary Physics, the University of Cologne in Germany, Britain's Open University and the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission.
“We look forward to scientists from all over the world making more scientific discoveries, jointly expanding human knowledge and benefiting all of humanity,” Shan said.
The 2020 Chang'e-5 unmanned mission made China the third country to collect moon rocks.
Previously, moon rocks were collected by the United States and the Soviet Union.
Dr John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, noted that the rocks recovered from the Chang'e 5 mission are a billion years younger than the lunar samples collected by the US Apollo missions.
China's Chang'e-6 lunar mission also returned moon rocks to Earth last year. The mission's main goal was to collect some of the oldest known rocks from the moon's south pole.
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