Nearly 50 years have passed since NASA collected samples of the Moon during the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and 1970s. Now, the government space agency has finally chosen to study them, with the help of outsiders. Lori Glaze, acting director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said the samples were "deliberately saved" to take advantages of advancements in technology. Six of the nine teams will study a sample that was brought back to Earth vacuum-sealed on the Moon during the last Apollo mission, Apollo 17, which happened in 1972. "Other teams will be studying samples that have also been specially curated, some from Apollo 17 that were brought to Earth and then kept frozen, and samples from the Apollo 15 mission which have been stored in helium since 1971," NASA added.

Source: Fox News March 13, 2019 15:33 UTC