NASA astronauts brought back almost 400 kilograms of Moon rocks over the six Apollo lunar landings. Many of the samples were studied at the time, but NASA thought it was a good idea to save some unopened so that scientists in the future could use new techniques and instruments that the 60s engineers could only dream of. A team of scientists is about to open one of these samples — one of the last unopened ones.

The sample is one from Apollo 17, the last lunar landing. It was collected by the astronauts using two tubes hammered into the rock. One of the two tubes from that collection was vacuum sealed while still on the lunar surface, one of only two samples to get this treatment across all the Apollo missions.

This sample was sealed in such a way to preserve the materials which may have been in it because of its temperature. Those materials, known as volatiles, are of interest to scientists planning for the Artemis return to the Moon later in the 2020s. Volatiles include water ice and carbon dioxide. The volatiles will be studied using a mass spectrometer, a device that measures the size of molecules to identify them. Mass spectrometers have become very sensitive in recent years, allowing more precise data from these 50-year-old samples. This particular sample analysis project was started over a decade ago, with teams taking the last three years to develop the tools necessary to do it.

The team took the sample out of its outer protective case last month and confirmed that the inner vacuum case was still intact. The process of extracting the gas involves two specialized pieces of equipment — a tool to pierce the case and another tool called a manifold used to extract the gases from inside. The manifold was built by a team from Washington University in St. Louis. The piercing tool was built by a team from the European Space Agency.

The process to extract the gas from the rock sample will take months to complete. After the gas is collected, scientists will analyze the rocks themselves. A team back in 2019 examined the other core taken at the same time but not vacuum sealed. It revealed lots of small grains and rocks.

Just because you have a few decades on you, doesn’t mean you aren’t still useful. Sure, those lunar samples are really billions of years old, but the statement still applies.

More Information

NASA press release

Lunar Rocks and Soils from Apollo Missions (NASA)