![]() Unlike Earth, the moon hasn’t changed much since it formed. For planetary scientists, research on lunar samples is invaluable. In this way, the lunar samples are a link between us and the heavens, helping us see deeper into them and understand what we find. She says figuring that out will help identify the composition of objects - like asteroids - spotted by telescopes. She’s investigating how much of the soil’s color comes from its composition (what it’s made out of) and how much comes from space weathering. But it’s in service of a grand, even beautiful, idea.īurgess is working to make moon rocks a reference guide to the greater cosmos. When Burgess peers at the specimen with an electron microscope so powerful it can see down to the scale of atoms, she’s looking for evidence of how exposure to that radiation changed the soil color. Brian Resnick/Voxįor a very long time, that soil rested undisturbed on the moon, exposed only to the immense radiation of space. Brian Resnick/Vox The amount of lunar soil in this vial is tiny. Geologist Kate Burgess stands near an electron microscope that can resolve images on the scale of atoms. It contains soil from the moon, collected by the astronauts of Apollo 17 in 1972. These are treasures, helping us humans understand our place among the stars.įrom the chest, geologist Kate Burgess pulls out another treasure: a tiny Teflon vial, double-wrapped in Teflon bags. Inside are meteorites recovered from Antarctic ice and grains of material believed to predate the formation of our solar system. In a brilliant white room at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, lies a clear plastic chest filled with bits of the heavens.
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