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Moon Rocks: "The Lunar Samples Of Apollo 11" 1969 NASA
🕑 Added 2019-07-23 04:09:34 +0000 UTCmore at http://quickfound.net/
Early descriptions of the lunar soil and lunar rock returned by the Apollo 11 astronauts.
Originally a public domain film from the National Archives or Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock
Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Moon rock or lunar rock is rock that is found on the Earth's Moon including lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, or rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface (and which has then landed on the Earth as meteorites)...
Sources
Moon rocks on Earth come from three sources: those collected by the United States Apollo program crewed lunar landings from 1969 to 1972; samples returned by three Soviet Luna programme uncrewed probes in the 1970s; and rocks that were ejected naturally from the lunar surface before falling to Earth as lunar meteorites. The Apollo missions collected 2,200 samples weighing 382 kilograms (842 lb). Three Luna spacecraft returned with 301 grams (10.6 oz) of samples. More than 300 lunar meteorites have been collected on Earth, representing more than 30 different meteorite finds (no falls), with a total mass of over 190 kilograms (420 lb). Some were discovered by scientific teams (such as ANSMET) searching for meteorites in Antarctica, with most of the remainder discovered by collectors in the desert regions of northern Africa and Oman...
The Soviet Union attempted, but failed to make crewed lunar landings in the 1970s, but they succeeded in landing three robotic Luna spacecraft with the capability to collect and return small samples to Earth. A combined total of less than half a kilogram of material was returned.
In 1993, three small fragments from Luna 16, weighing 200 mg, were sold for US$ 442,500 at Sotheby's.
On November 29th 2018 the Luna 16 fragments sold for US$ 855,000 at Sotheby's
Dating
Rocks from the Moon have been measured by radiometric dating techniques. They range in age from about 3.16 billion years old for the basaltic samples derived from the lunar maria, up to about 4.44 billion years old for rocks derived from the highlands. Based on the age-dating technique of "crater counting," the youngest basaltic eruptions are believed to have occurred about 1.2 billion years ago, but scientists do not possess samples of these lavas. In contrast, the oldest ages of rocks from the Earth are between 3.8 and 4.28 billion years old.
Moon rocks fall into two main categories: those found in the lunar highlands (terrae), and those in the maria. The terrae consist dominantly of mafic plutonic rocks. Regolith breccias with similar protoliths are also common. Mare basalts come in three distinct series in direct relation to their titanium content: high-Ti basalts, low-Ti basalts, and Very Low-Ti (VLT) basalts.
Almost all lunar rocks are depleted in volatiles and are completely lacking in hydrated minerals common in Earth rocks. In some regards, lunar rocks are closely related to Earth's rocks in their isotopic composition of the element oxygen. The Apollo moon rocks were collected using a variety of tools, including hammers, rakes, scoops, tongs, and core tubes. Most were photographed prior to collection to record the condition in which they were found. They were placed inside sample bags and then a Special Environmental Sample Container for return to the Earth to protect them from contamination. In contrast to the Earth, large portions of the lunar crust appear to be composed of rocks with high concentrations of the mineral anorthite. The mare basalts have relatively high iron values. Furthermore, some of the mare basalts have very high levels of titanium (in the form of ilmenite)...
