NASA examines virgin lunar space rock sample to ‘maximise science return from Apollo’

The science experiment sets the stage for NASA to practice techniques to study future samples collected during the Artemis missions. The sample, opened this Tuesday, was collected on the Moon by Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt, who drove a 4cm-wide tube into the lunar surface to collect it and another sample scheduled to be opened early next year.

The sample was opened as part of NASA’s Apollo Next-Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) initiative, leveraging cutting-edge tech to study Apollo samples using new tools that were unavailable when the samples were originally returned to Earth.

We are able to make measurements today that were just not possible during the years of the Apollo program

Dr Sarah Noble

Dr Sarah Noble, ANGSA program scientist, said: “We are able to make measurements today that were just not possible during the years of the Apollo program.

“The analysis of these samples will maximise the science return from Apollo, as well as enable a new generation of scientists and curators to refine their techniques and help prepare future explorers for lunar missions anticipated in the 2020s and beyond.”

Since the Apollo era, all space samples returned to Earth have been carefully stored by NASA to preserve them for future generations.

Most space rock samples have been well studied and many are the subject of ongoing research.

However, NASA also decided to retain some untouched samples as an investment in the future, in order to analyse with more advanced technologies as they develop.

Such samples remain sealed in their original containers, as well as some stored under special conditions.

But all are intended to be opened and analysed with more advanced analytical technologies unavailable during the Apollo period.

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The unopened Apollo samples were collected on Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions.

Two of those samples, 73002 and 73001, both collected on Apollo 17, will be studied as part of ANGSA.

Advances in techniques such as non-destructive 3D imaging, mass spectrometry and ultra-high resolution microtomy will allow for a coordinated study of these samples at an unprecedented scale.

Samples 73002 and 73001 are part of a 2ft long “drive tube” of rock and soil collected from a landslide deposit near Lara Crater at the Apollo 17 site.

The samples preserve the vertical layering within the lunar soil and information about lunar landslides.

After X-ray scanning, the samples were removed from their tube using specialised tools inside a glovebox filled with ultra-pure dry Nitrogen, and are then subdivided into one-quarter inch segments to allow NASA to understand the variation observed along the length of the core.

It is also hoped a record of cosmic volatiles trapped within lunar regolith will be retained, perhaps even those escaping from the Moon along the Lee-Lincoln Scarp, a fault at the Apollo 17 site.

Francis McCubbin, NASA’s astromaterials curator, said: “Opening these samples now will enable new scientific discoveries about the Moon and will allow a new generation of scientists to refine their techniques to better study future samples returned by Artemis astronauts.

“Our scientific technologies have vastly improved in the past 50 years and scientists have an opportunity to analyse these samples in ways not previously possible.”

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