MINERALS OF THE MOON

THE ONGOING STORY OF THE APOLLO MOON ROCKS

- STEVE VOYNICK

Arguably the greatest mineral-collecting field trip of all time took place in July 1969, when two rockhounds gathered 48 pounds of specimens at a never-before-collected locality. Although admittedly short on aesthetic appeal, these specimens were a scientific bonanza and the most valuable mineral specimens ever collected.

The collectors were National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., the first humans to set foot on the Moon. The field trip was NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, and the locality was the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility. By 1972 when the Apollo program ended, 12 astronauts had walked on the Moon and collected 842 pounds of “moon rocks.” The significance of these celebrated rocks and what became of them during the half-century that followed is a fascinating tale of high security, meticulous accounting, worldwide distribution, unprecedented scientific study, and even a bit of fraud and greed.

Before Apollo, our geological and mineralogical knowledge of the Moon had amounted to educated guesswork based largely on the study of lunar meteorites. But lunar meteorites, pieces of the Moon’s surface that had been dislodged by meteoritic impacts and wound up on Earth, are rare. And their scientific value was limited because of unknown lunar geographic origin, alteration incurred in the heat of atmospheric entry, and long-term exposure to the Earth’s atmosphere.

EARLY THEORIES OF ORIGINS