BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's science news from the past week:
LITHIUM-RICH GIANT STARS
Chinese astronomers have found more than 10,000 giant stars rich in lithium, surpassing the total number of such stars previously discovered by scientists around the world.
The discovery was made by researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences based on data from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, a special quasi-meridian reflecting Schmidt telescope located in Xinglong, north China's Hebei Province.
LUNAR ROVER
China's lunar rover Yutu-2 has driven 357.695 meters on the far side of the moon to conduct scientific exploration of the virgin territory.
Both the lander and the rover of the Chang'e-4 probe have ended their work for the 13th lunar day on Thursday (Beijing time), and switched to dormant mode for the lunar night.
SOLAR SAIL
The "SIASAIL-I" solar sail, developed by the Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has successfully verified many key technologies in orbit.
The solar sail, a spacecraft powered by the reflected light pressure of the sun on the membrane, is considered to be very likely to reach outside the solar system.
QUANTUM SATELLITE
China's quantum satellite -- Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) -- has successfully linked up with the world's first mobile quantum ground station and conducted an encrypted data transmission in Jinan, Shandong Province.
The test successfully wrapped up after the ground station received encrypted data from the satellite for nearly eight minutes.
