China has become the world's third-largest owner of Antarctic aerolites after Japan and the United States, Xinhua News Aency reported on Thursday.

China's research team has collected 5,282 aerolites by Wednesday since the beginning of the country's 22nd Antarctic expedition, more than the sum of aerolites collected during past missions.

Now the country owns nearly 10,000 aerolites, Xinhua said.

Japan owns the greatest amount at 20,000, while the United States owns just over 10,000.

One of the stones picked  has been confirmed as a moon aerolite, the first such aerolite China has collected in the region, Xinhua said, citing a Chinese Academy of Sciences scientist Lin Yangting.

The team also found one weighing 4.8 kilograms, the biggest the country has ever found from the southern pole.

The aerolite exhibition and collection is now officially complete, and the team will now carry out research on the Antarctic icecap, the ancient climate and other geology studies.

China's Antarctic expedition team left Shanghai on November 18, 2005, launching the 22nd mission since 1984.

(Shanghai Daily January 26, 2006)