I bought a piece of the MOON!
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2022 8:42 pm
No, not a plot of land marketed by the shysters at https://lunarregistry.com/ Even I know better than to blow over a hundred bucks an acre sight-unseen. Maybe after I've gone and looked at it.
But seriously, as a subscriber to Astronomy Magazine I get about a thousand emails a day, all trying to convince me to buy some astronomy related product from a variety of places. Recently I got one that said I could buy a piece of a lunar meteorite. I'm a Moon enthusiast, so I did.
Behold, Lunar Meteorite NWA 11182. She ain't much at first glance, but it was a helluva lot easier to get a hold of than a rock brought back by one of the Apollo missions. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/samp ... f_2012.pdf Those NASA fellows get pretty uptight about the whereabouts of their rocks. You can't just drop in, and say, borrow one. Saying "I just want to hold it and maybe take a picture of it" isn't going to cut it. I stopped reading at "3.0 LUNAR SAMPLE ACCOUNTABILITY AND SECURITY."
Things got a lot more interesting with my personal lunar sample when I started investigating it. According to the details on the official website for all things meteorites, it came to earth not via a multi-billion dollar space mission, but rather got here all on its own and landed rather randomly somewhere in Northwest Africa. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull ... code=65063
As you can see my piece of the Moon is rather small, but the parent rock that it was taken from wasn't all that big to begin with. The mass of the rock that was found in Africa totaled 60 grams, or just a little over two ounces. My .15 gram sample might not seem like much, but hey .25% of the whole isn't too bad. It's more than any of my CD's made over the last 20 years. Try getting even a speck of dust out of those folks at NASA! I don't think so!
Placing my sample under a simple USB microscope made it even cooler. At several powers of magnification all kinds of cool structure was revealed. I'm no rock scientist, but some of those colorful inclusions must be what the words FELDSPATHIC BRECCIA are referring to.
Anyway, this is my first foray into the fun and exciting world of meteorite collecting. Now how to get the wife to let go of those purse strings...
Keep Looking Up!
Mike M.
But seriously, as a subscriber to Astronomy Magazine I get about a thousand emails a day, all trying to convince me to buy some astronomy related product from a variety of places. Recently I got one that said I could buy a piece of a lunar meteorite. I'm a Moon enthusiast, so I did.
Behold, Lunar Meteorite NWA 11182. She ain't much at first glance, but it was a helluva lot easier to get a hold of than a rock brought back by one of the Apollo missions. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/samp ... f_2012.pdf Those NASA fellows get pretty uptight about the whereabouts of their rocks. You can't just drop in, and say, borrow one. Saying "I just want to hold it and maybe take a picture of it" isn't going to cut it. I stopped reading at "3.0 LUNAR SAMPLE ACCOUNTABILITY AND SECURITY."
Things got a lot more interesting with my personal lunar sample when I started investigating it. According to the details on the official website for all things meteorites, it came to earth not via a multi-billion dollar space mission, but rather got here all on its own and landed rather randomly somewhere in Northwest Africa. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull ... code=65063
As you can see my piece of the Moon is rather small, but the parent rock that it was taken from wasn't all that big to begin with. The mass of the rock that was found in Africa totaled 60 grams, or just a little over two ounces. My .15 gram sample might not seem like much, but hey .25% of the whole isn't too bad. It's more than any of my CD's made over the last 20 years. Try getting even a speck of dust out of those folks at NASA! I don't think so!
Placing my sample under a simple USB microscope made it even cooler. At several powers of magnification all kinds of cool structure was revealed. I'm no rock scientist, but some of those colorful inclusions must be what the words FELDSPATHIC BRECCIA are referring to.
Anyway, this is my first foray into the fun and exciting world of meteorite collecting. Now how to get the wife to let go of those purse strings...
Keep Looking Up!
Mike M.