The mission Apollo brought a total sample of 2196 rocks to the earth. But NASA has only opened the samples, which took around 50 years ago. The tubes were sealed for research with new technology.

NASA knew “science and technology would evolve and allow scientists to study the material in new ways to address new questions in the future,” Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement.

Dubbed 73001, the sample in question was collected by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in December 1972, the last of the program during the Apollo 17 mission.

The tube, which was 35 cm long and 4cm wide, hammered into the Moon’s Tarues littrow valley to collect the sample of the moon. There are two sample vacuum-sealed packs, the first one is to be open, and it could contain some volatile or gases substance.

We are not sure if it is a lunar gas sample or not, and the sample remains sealed. On 23 Feb, scientists tried piercing a long tube and harvesting the gas inside.

The rock will be broken and carefully extracted in the spring season so that different scientists’ teams work on it. The extraction site is quite interesting because it is a landslide site.

“Now we don’t have rain on the Moon,” said Juliane Gross, deputy Apollo curator. “And so we don’t quite understand how landslides happen on the Moon.”

Gross said researchers hope to study the sample to understand what causes landslides.

Only three samples will be sealed when they are opened out of 73001.

“I doubt we’ll wait another 50 years,” said senior curator Ryan Zeigler.

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Alice Jane
Alice is the Chief Editor with relevant experience of three years, Alice has founded Galaxy Reporters. She has a keen interest in the field of science. She is the pillar behind the in-depth coverages of Science news. She has written several papers and high-level documentation.

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