As China and the United States go head-to-head in the arenas of science and technology, some of China’s top scientists have rated the most significant advances of 2024 that have helped push the country to the forefront of several fields – from space and deep-sea exploration to chips and quantum technologies.
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On January 22 in Nanjing, leading scientists and engineers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) announced the nation’s top 10 achievements from last year.
Sun Peijie, a professor at the CAS Institute of Physics in Beijing, whose own research made the list, said the tabulations were decided directly by experts from the two academies and were evaluations of the previous year’s scientific achievements, designations that carry much weight in China’s scientific community.
These are the 10 most important scientific advancements in China last year, as judged by the nation’s leading scientific minds.
Space race
China published extraordinary findings after Chang’e-6 lunar mission retrieved first ever samples from moon’s mysterious far side
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Early last year, China launched Chang’e-6, an extremely complex 53-day mission to collect rocks from the far side of the moon. The spacecraft scooped and drilled materials from the Apollo basin – located within the 2,500km (1,553 mile)-wide South Pole-Aitken Basin – and transported nearly 2kg (4.4 pounds) of samples to Earth in June.