A half-century ago, three containers of lunar samples were set aside, to await study by more advanced technology. Their time has come.
Later this year, NASA will reveal never-before-seen morsels of the moon, the agency announced on Monday.
The astronauts of the Apollo missions that landed on the moon from 1969 to 1972 collected 842 pounds worth of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust. Many of those samples were later opened on the ground. But three have remained sealed — their contents stashed away for nearly 50 years.
They were intentionally saved for a time when more advanced technology would allow planetary scientists on Earth to delve deeper into the moon’s mysteries.
“The technology available in the ’60s and ’70s wasn’t able to do what we can do now,” said Jessica Barnes, an astronomer soon to join the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. “Now we can go to a mineral and we can look at the very fine details, down to almost the width of a human hair.”
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In a year marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, and with American space priorities shifting toward a return to the moon, NASA has at last decided that it’s time to open the long-locked samples. The agency selected nine teams to study the moon rocks in detail.
For the past decade, Charles Shearer, a scientist at the University of New Mexico, has pressed NASA to unseal the rocks. He was thrilled by the news: “We are completing the Apollo mission adventure after 50 years, using new types of measurements and new views of our moon.
