“We’re touching history”: NASA opens untouched Apollo moon rock sample sealed for more than 40 years

In December 1972, astronauts on the Apollo 17 lunar mission returned to Earth with samples of rock and soil from the moon. On Tuesday, NASA scientists opened a sample that had been sealed and untouched for more than 40 years.

The pristine sample of rock and regolith was opened on Tuesday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston as part of NASA’s Apollo Next-Generation Sample Analysis initiative (ANGSA), which is using advanced technology that was not yet available when the samples originally returned to Earth.