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Fifty years ago, Apollo astronauts collected mysterious lunar matter and sealed it in a 14-inch tube.
Now NASA scientists are finally preparing to open it up for the first time since 1972.
Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt drove two tubes into the surface of the Moon and brought them back to Earth.
While one of them was immediately opened, the other has been kept hermetically sealed and stored for safekeeping ever since.
The hope was that one day, scientists could use future technologies to gain a better understanding of what was in them, and it seems that day has finally come.
The samples were collected by astronaut Harrison Schmitt on the moon in 1972 (pictured) (Image: NASA/AFP via Getty Images) Read More Related Articles Read More Related Articles
“The agency knew that science and technology would evolve and allow scientists to study the material in new ways to address new questions in the future,” says Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division.
These questions will revolve around the hidden substances in the soil samples, which could contain numerous unknown molecules, gases, and extraterrestrial matter.
What NASA finds will be vital in future Artemis missions to the Moon’s South Pole, which will be the first manned lunar landings since Cernan and Schmitt’s mission.
Can it be cheese? (Image: Getty Images) Read more related articles
To open the sample, the European Space Agency (ESA) has developed a special ‘Apollo can opener’ that will burst the tube, allowing space gases to escape.
The hope is that NASA can better understand not only what’s on the Moon, but also how it experiences things like landslides. It might even tell us more about the origins of the Solar System.
In other news, NASA has finally said it will consider researching sex in space in a big win for horny astronauts.
The space agency has come under increased pressure to encourage a ’62-mile-high club’ and embrace space sex research to ensure humans can reproduce safely in outer space.
Academics argue that it will be vital to ensuring a long-term human presence on other celestial bodies like Mars and the Moon, as the likes of Elon Musk hope.
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