The Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms of samples, including rocks, rock core, rock, pebbles, sand, and dust. Scientists have studied those samples for decades and have learned a lot. They haven't studied all of the samples.
NASA foresighted and left some of the samples in pristine condition. Why? The technology used to study the samples would only get better over time.
Apollo 17 was NASA's final Apollo mission and the last of six that made it to the Moon and back. 50 years ago, the mission returned with its samples. Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt were on that mission. The only scientist to visit the Moon was Schmitt. The crew collected the largest amount of lunar samples to date.
The eastern edge of Mare Serenitatis is where Apollo 17 landed. To obtain samples of ancient rocks from the lunar highlands and to look for evidence of young volcanic activity on the valley floor were the main objectives of the mission.
The astronauts put the samples in containers. The sealed containers are used to protect the sample from atmospheric gases before it is opened in a vacuum chamber.
Fifty years have passed since Apollo 17 returned to Earth, and now is the time to open the last remaining lunar sample from the Apollo Program. The sample will be unsealed by the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program. ANGSA is a team of scientists who want to maximize the science derived from samples returned by the Apollo Program in preparation for future lunar missions anticipated in the 2020s and beyond.
Understanding the geologic history and evolution of the Moon samples at the Apollo landing sites will help us prepare for the types of samples that may be encountered during Artemis. This is an exciting learning opportunity to understand the tools needed for collecting and transporting these samples, for analyzing them, and for storing them on Earth for future generations of scientists.
The Apollo missions collected samples in the 70s and the technology available to study them was formidable. In the intervening years, technological advances have propelled that technology to new levels. It would have seemed like science fiction to researchers in the 1960s and 1970s to study these samples in such a way.
The agency knew science and technology would evolve and allow scientists to study the material in new ways.
Some of the scientists who will study the Apollo samples were not born when the samples were collected. Many of the people involved in the Apollo program have passed away and will never get to see some of the results of their epic missions and their wise decision to leave some samples for the future.
The Apollo 17 crew put the samples in a double-drive tube after collecting them. The sample is called the ANGSA 73001 sample. After being sealed under vacuum on the Moon, it was stored in an atmosphere-controlled environment at Johnson. The other portion was made public in 2019.
The scientists from the University of Arizona were given access to the lunar samples in 2019. Barnes said that being able to study the samples was like a new lunar sample return mission. We get to be a part of the history of opening these samples, but we also will be using this opportunity to study how curation practices, such as ambient versus cold storage, affect our ability to measure a lunar water signature.
They realized that future technologies would allow us to do things that would have been impossible at the time and that people would come up with new questions.
The source of Earth's water is one of the enduring questions in Solar System science. Scientists have to look around the rest of the Solar System for clues. The geological evidence from Earth's earliest history was erased by plate tectonics. There is no plate tectonics on the Moon.
Barnes said that we need to understand how water ended up on Earth, Mars, and in the asteroid belt. Unlike Earth, where the oldest rocks have largely been erased by plate tectonics, the moon's ancient rock record is still intact.
About a decade ago, we discovered water on the Moon and haven't gathered any lunar samples since. This sample could be used in our quest to understand the water on Earth.
Scientists compare water from different parts of the Solar System. H1, also called protium, and H2, are the two main elements in water. There will be a ratio of these two stable isotopes of hydrogen in the sample of water. tritium decays rapidly.
If two Solar System bodies have the same hydrogen isotope ratios in their water, it suggests the water had the same source or history. Scientists studied hydrogen isotope ratios on Earth and compared them to lunar and meteorite ratios. Understanding all the different waters is part of the effort to understand how the Solar System formed.
There are elements in lunar rock that have isotope ratios. The Giant Impact hypothesis says that the Moon formed from debris from a collision between early Earth and a Mars-sized planet. The world of isotope ratios is not easy to understand. The Giant Impact Hypothesis is supported by some isotopic evidence.
Will this sample bring clarity?
The technology for studying samples has improved a lot. When scientists first studied the Apollo samples, one of the available devices did not exist. It is called a Nano-SIMS.
Scientists can identify and create maps of the elements with the help of the Nano-SIMS. The content of all kinds of samples, from meteorites to ancient rocks to fine-grained dust from a comet, can be measured with the help of the Nano-SIMS.
Researchers will bring the technology to bear on this pristine sample. We are not there yet.
The conditions at the bottom of the tube were very cold when the astronauts collected the sample. Water and carbon dioxide should still be in the tube because they were frozen. The sample came from the Moon's mid-latitude regions, where NASA is sending the Artemis mission. Understanding the samples will help the Artemis mission.
There probably isn't a lot of gas in the sealed sample. The gas will still be full of clues if scientists can extract it carefully. Modern mass spectrometry tools are very sensitive and will be able to determine with great precision the mass of the molecule in the gas. Only a small portion of the sample is needed to do the work. Multiple researchers can study different aspects of lunar science with the sample.
The process of getting the sample from its tube is a lot of work. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis developed a device to extract gas from a tube. A group of scientists at the European Space Agency developed a tool to pierce the lunar sample container. This unique system was developed for this sample and has undergone rigorous testing.
The team started work on February 11th. The process started with opening the protective tube and collecting gases. The team knew what they were going to get, and they found everything they expected. The inner tube's seal was intact and not leaking, because the outer tube contained no lunar gases.
James Blair is from NASA.
The team began the next step on February 23. It will take weeks to pierce the inner container and gather the lunar gases inside.
The team from NASA's Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division will begin removing the soil and rocks once the gas is removed.
James Blair is from NASA.
Ryan is the Apollo sample curator. He is responsible for overseeing the process of getting the gas and rock. To properly prepare, catalogue, and share the sample with others, is the job of Zeigler. The excitement is building.
A lot of people are excited.
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