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The Apollo program was the United States human space project founded by NASA to meet United States President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing man on the moon. Armstrong and his fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin did just that, after landing the Eagle lunar lander on the dusty surface on July 20, 1969. The pair spent two and a quarter hours exploring and collecting more than 20kg of rock samples before. bury the flag of the United States on the surface of the Moon and return to Earth.
Overall, the Apollo program returned 382 kg of lunar rocks and soil, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon’s composition and geological history.
From chunks to plain dust, samples recovered nearly half a century ago during the six manned landings are kept safe at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas and the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico.
And biologist Dr Joe Hanson got to visit one of them during his documentary “Apollo’s Most Important Discovery” on the YouTube channel “It’s Okay To Be Smart”.
Ryan Zeigler, NASA’s Apollo Sample Curator, told viewers, “This is a 1978 US Federal Reserve Bank vault.
Scientists have opened the vault containing rock samples (Image: GETTY)
The crew of Apollo 11 landed on the moon more than half a century ago (Image: GETTY)
“There’s no price for what’s inside, it’s priceless. 70 percent of the moon rocks on Earth are found inside this vault.
“If you turn it counterclockwise we can open the door.”
Dr. Hanson explained what was stored in the vault.
He said: “That door weighed more than 4,000 kg and behind it are more than 300 kg of rocks brought to Earth by astronauts in six Apollo missions.
“In the 1960s, even though scientists had discovered enough science to get people to the moon, they still didn’t know how it was formed.
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Many moon rocks are stored by NASA (Image: YOUTUBE)
“The rocks we brought back were the key to unlocking this age-old mystery.
“In 1969, during the very first moonwalk, an astronaut made a lucky decision that gave scientists the hint they were waiting for.
“At the last minute, just before they returned to Earth, something happened.”
Mr. Zeilgler explained why moon rocks were so important.
He said: “This was the last sample collected on Apollo 11, as Neil Armstrong was out of the lunar excursion module, ready to seal the rock box.
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Neil Armstrong’s champion was revealed (Image: YOUTUBE)
“He looked inside and thought it looked a bit empty, so he decided to shovel four lots of earth into the rock box and then seal it.
“It turned out to be this champion, and it was the largest single champion brought back to life.”
Dr. Hanson went on to explain how this sample helped solve an ancient mystery.
He added: “It became a really important specimen, because as people looked at it, they found small fragments of white rock and thought it was anorthosite.
“To understand why the ground scoop was such a big deal, we have to support this story until 1609, in Florence, where Galileo took a new invention called Peerspicillum and pointed it to the moon.
White species have been found in the Moon samples (Image: YOUTUBE)
“Today we call that invention a telescope. On the other side of the terminator, the line of light and shadow extending across the partial Moon, Galileo saw that it had areas of high and low ground.
“He thought that, as on Earth, the darkest and lowest areas were the seas, the so-called ‘Maria’ and Apollo 11 landed in one of them.”
And the scientific writer and presenter explained how it led to a breakthrough in understanding the lunar body.
“The highlands of the Moon, on the other hand, were lighter in color, like where Apollo 16 landed.
Chronology of the Apollo 11 moon landing (Image: GETTY)
“All of this told us that the Moon was really old, and after billions of years of impacts with space rocks, the outer 5-15 meters of the lunar surface had been ground into a substance called ‘regolith’.
“This is what Neil Armstrong has collected. But in that, scientists found 84 specs of white stuff they weren’t expecting.
“This sent scientists to look for an explanation and they found that in order for that white anorthosite to reach the Sea of Tranquility, it must have been blown up there by a gigantic impact, like a meteorite, from the highlands of the Moon.
“And if the plateaus – which cover most of the Moon – were anorthosites, that meant most of the Moon was covered in white rock.”
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