Moon dust from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 has been found in a NASA warehouse, kept in a storage cabinet for over 40 years. The vials of dust were uncovered by an archivist, Karen Nelson, searching the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for artifacts.
The moon dust was collected from the lunar surface by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first two men to set foot on the Moon. NASA sent 2.4 ounces of the material to the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California for research. The team returned 1.75 ounces of the sample to NASA. The space agency assumed the remainder had been consumed during testing. The total weight of the sample material recovered from storage is about one-tenth of an ounce.
Each of the 20 or so vials were affixed with labels dated "24 July 1970." They were found stored in a sealed jar from which most of the air had been removed. The jar and vials were also stored with a copy of a journal article, Study of Carbon Compounds in Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 Returned Lunar Samples. The study was written by a team of researchers from the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California. Included with the vials and papers were 140 pieces of scientific equipment, including glass items created at Berkeley Laboratory. The samples should have been sent back to NASA after the team conducted their study, but they were waylaid into a warehouse instead.
"We don't know how or when they ended up in storage," Nelson said in a statement.
The recently-discovered vials have been sent back to NASA for safe keeping. Before returning the material, program officials allowed Nelson to open the large jar containing the vials. NASA apparently had no idea the rare samples were lost.
"They were surprised we had the samples," Nelson said.
Future plans for the newly-found items include displaying some of the objects at the Berkeley Lab, and possibly other institutions, including the Smithsonian.
Over 150 institutions received Moon dust samples collected by the Apollo 11 mission. More than 840 pounds of lunar material was brought back from the Moon by the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972.
