[meteorite-list] Meteorite Picture of the Day - Apollo 17 rock

[Korotev, Randy]

Paul,

Regarding your Meteorite Picture of the Day questions (11 October 2024), I can provide some answers.

The mass of material collected by the Apollo missions increased from 21.6 kg for Apollo 11 to 110.5 kg for Apollo 17. There are Apollo 11 samples (all basalts) on public display at 4 institutions while Apollo 17 samples are on display at ~18 institutions, 6 outside the U.S. Full list here:
  https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/displays/LunarSampleDisplays.pdf
This list may not be up to date.

All requests for public displays are handled by the NASA-JSC public affairs office in conjunction with the advisory committee of scientists (mostly non-NASA) that entertains sample requests from scientists. The public affairs office requires a detailed security plan from each institution requesting a sample for display and it may take a few years for such request to be approved, usually after a site visit. There are lots of hurdles. One, for example, is “How many visitors do you have each year?”

Most rocks in public displays are basalts because nearly all the science provided by basalts can be obtained from a few grams. Breccias, on the other hand, contain clasts of many different kinds of older rocks and are, consequently, more useful to science for some purposes, so there are few breccias on public display. Scientifically, it was inefficient to collect kilogram-sized basalts, but these rocks have great PR value.

There are 7 Apollo 17 rock samples greater than a kilogram in mass. The one at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a piece (split number 54) of a basalt known as 75015 for which the original mass was 1006 g. (The 7 in the sample number is for Apollo 17, the first 5 is for station 5 where it was collected, and the last 5 indicates that the sample is a rock >1 cm in diameter, not a soil or core sample.) You can tell from your photo that the rock has been sawn. I do not know the mass of the display sample. There’s another piece of the same rock on display at the Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Denmark. A photo of the original rock is here:
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/lab_view/?mission=Apollo%2017&sample=75015&side=t

Long-time lunar scientists can spout off 5-digit lunar sample numbers like they are names of their children. I’ve often thought that the naming convention was a mistake in that it’s just more interesting to hear a talk about rocks named Dingo Pup Donga, Vaca Muerta, or Beer Bottle Pass than 75105 (or was it 71055?). Naming rocks found on Mars by rovers after real things is an improvement.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+

Randy L. Korotev
Research Professor, retired
Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences
Washington University in Saint Louis
  https://eps.wustl.edu/people/randy-l-korotev

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From: Meteorite-list <meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com> on behalf of Paul Swartz via Meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2024 02:35
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorite Picture of the Day

Friday, Oct 11 2024 Meteorite Picture of the Day: Apollo 17 Moon Rock

Contributed by: Paul Swartz

http://www.tucsonmeteorites.com/mpodmain.asp?DD=10/11/2024
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