"COSPAR Outstanding Paper Award for Young Scientists" began from 2008 and is issued as during the meeting of COSPAR Scientific Commission every two years. The student Chen Jian of Planetary Science Group was recently recognized by COSPAR President Prof. Fisk for the Outstanding Paper Award for Young Scientists on April 28. His paper, entitled “Abundance and distribution of radioelements in lunar terranes: Results of Chang’E-1 gamma ray spectrometer data”, was published in journal Advances in Space Research. Announcement of the award will take place at the 41th COSPAR Scientific Assembly (30 July – 7 August 2016, Istanbul, Turkey) scheduled on Thursday, 4 August 2016.

The paper is completed by Chen Jian in Shandong University (Weihai) during his graduate program for master degree, under the direction of Prof. Ling Zongcheng. In this paper, based on the gamma-ray spectrometer datasets of Chang’E-1, he carried out spectral fitting to derive the contribution of radioelements in overlapping peaks. Then, the absolute abundances were calibrated according to returned lunar soil samples as well as feldspathic meteorites. The obtained global concentration maps of these radioelements indicate heterogeneous distribution among three major lunar crustal terranes in relation with their origin and distinct geologic history.

Global distribution of chemical composition is one of major themes of lunar exploration. This paper is of great significance to the achievement of scientific goals of Chinese Lunar Exploration Program and also contributes to the utilization of lunar resources in the future.