Fifty years ago, a team of astronauts working on a NASA Apollo mission shoved a sealed box, about 35 centimeters long, down the surface of the Moon to collect samples.
After taking enough alien rock, two experts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt vacuumed the container, and brought valuable research materials about Earth.
One of many tubes containing research samples that has been kept sealed for decades.
At NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, experts unpack the container. Since the completion of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, and also the last time humanity set foot on the Moon, the rock has not been exposed to Earth’s atmosphere. During this study, NASA opened one of the last lunar soil samples, 50 years after the Apollo 17 mission ended.
Why did NASA have to wait so long? In the same way that an individual seeks to freeze his body for later resurrection, scientists want to take advantage of the scientific advancement of the future.
“The agency that understands how science and technology will evolve, and allows experts to study digital matter in new ways, to question new questions of the future.,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division.
After careful study, the rock layer revealed interesting properties of landslides in the vacuum environment.
Special chamber for opening sample tubes, developed by the University of Washington.
In addition to lunar soil, the inside of the closed tube also contains extraterrestrial gas, which is very volatile at room temperature. Because of that, the team had to open the tube in a special chamber, capable of storing whatever gas escapes from the sealed tube.
If gases are released, scientists can detect them using mass spectrometry technology. Besides, modern technology can also separate the gas into smaller parts, get research data for other areas.
Device used to collect gas released from a closed tube.
“The composition of gases can be analyzed, and helps to tell part of the story of their origin and evolutionary path on the Moon, as well as in this Solar System.”, the person in charge of the project Francesca McDonald told the press.
Now, science is advanced enough to thoroughly study the moon rocks brought back decades ago. It’s also time for humanity to bring new technology back to the Moon, to see how different our natural satellite is, and at the same time learn more about the star system we have to stay for a long time.