Scientists at NASA are tapping into one of the last unopened Apollo-era lunar samples to learn more about the Moon and prepare for a return to its surface. NASA’s Artemis mission aims to bring back cold and sealed samples from near the lunar South Pole. The sample is being opened at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and studied by the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program (ANGSA) — a science team which aims to learn more about the sample and the lunar surface in advance of the upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon’s South Pole. “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,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement. When Apollo astronauts returned with these samples around 50 years ago, NASA had the foresight to keep some of them unopened and pristine. The ANGSA 73001 sample is part of an Apollo 17 drive tube sample collected by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt in December 1972. The astronauts hammered a pair of connected 1.5-by-14-inch tubes into the lunar surface to collect segments of rocks and soil from a landslide deposit in the Moon’s Taurus-Littrow Valley.

                Source: IANS