New Delhi: China becomes the second country to unfurl their national flag on the moon, pictures from the country’s National Space Administration show the five-starred Red Flag holding still on the windless lunar surface.  The US had planted the first flag on the Moon in 1969 during the manned Apollo 11 mission. The Chinese spacecraft, Chang'e-5 was on a mission to understand the origin of the Moon and to bring back Moon samples. Chang’e-5 which is named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess took pictures of the Chinese flag before it left the moon on Thursday to return to Earth.

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The space probe also brought the first samples of lunar rock collected in four decades making it the third country to retrieve samples from the Moon, after the United States and the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. The last mission was undertaken by the former Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission in 1976. Chinese scientists also hope to understand volcanic activity on the Moon after studying the samples from its surface.

According to Chinese reports, the spacecraft will collect at least two kilograms of Moon samples from the area known as "Ocean of Storms". "Scientific detection was carried out as planned," China's space agency said.

According to Agence France-Presse reports, the Chang’e-5 spacecraft left the surface at 11.10 pm Beijing time (3.10 pm GMT) as mission engineers watching control screens applauded at length. China has poured billions into its military-run space programme as they plan to have a crew space station by 2022 and eventually send humans to the Moon.