Scientists say China’s Yutu-2 rover, part of the Chang’E-4 mission, has found several small glass globules on the moon’s far side. While tiny glass beads have been found previously in lunar samples brought back by the Apollo astronauts, the ones found by Yutu-2 are much bigger and translucent.

The discovery was made by Dr. Zhiyong Xiao, one of the lead scientific team members of the Chang’E-4 mission. They beads were found by looking at panoramic images taken by the rover. Since the rover doesn’t have sampling capabilities and is not a sample return mission like it’s older sibling, the Chang-E-5 mission, there is no compositional data on the glass beads, only observational evidence.

In the paper published in the Science Bulletin, Xiao said taking into account the location where the glass was found—in the South Pole Atkien basin at the lunar farside—and the local context of what is known about that region, they believe the beads are like most likely the result of large impacts to the moon.

The paper details the discovery of several translucent spherical and dumbbell-shaped glassy globules that range in size, but are as large as 4 centimeters (1.5 inches). They were found on the surface of the moon, and are transparent to translucent, with some exhibiting a light brownish color.

“Transparent and translucent glasses on the moon are less than 1 mm in diameters, and larger ones are dark and opaque,” the team wrote in their paper. “Hitherto discovered macro-sized glass globules on the moon (up to 4 cm in diameter) are opaque imp