NASA Unseals Moon Rock Samples For First Time Since Apollo Missions Written 27 June 2019

27 June 2019
The AP reports that NASA is preparing to unseal “some of the pristine samples” of moon rocks collected from the Apollo missions. The samples, housed in a vault at a restricted lab in Johnson Space Center, will be made available to geologists to study “with 21st-century technology.” NASA Apollo sample curator Ryan Zeigler said, “‘We can do more with a milligram than we could do with a gram back then. So it was really good planning on their part to wait.” Although “some of the soil and bits of rock were vacuum-packed on the moon…and never exposed to Earth’s atmosphere,” others were “frozen or stored in gaseous helium following splashdown and then left untouched.” The laboratory’s staff are researching sample removal methods that preserve the samples’ physical integrity. (Image Credit: NASA)
Full Story (Associated Press)