After 40 Years Missing Moon Dust Is Found

By: Pat Prescott
06/28/2011 10:46 PM ET

A speck of moon dust collected from a camera used by astronauts during the lunar landing was collected after the mission, but shortly after was lost and missing for nearly 40 years. It was recovered at a St. Louis auction house and returned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston this week. The U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis, which announced the recovery of the moon dust on June 23, said that investigators with NASA believed the dust had come from the film cartridge of a camera used by astronauts on humanity’s first trip to the moon in 1969.

“It’s a speck – the size of a fingertip,” David Kols of Regency-Superior auction house told Time. “But it’s lunar material, and since we’re not going back to the moon in my lifetime or yours, that makes it worth a lot to some people.” It was estimated to be worth to be between $1,000 and $1,500.

The dust was lifted from the cartridge using a 1-inch piece of clear tape. Somehow, it reached the black market and was sold in 2001, NASA investigators believe, to a German collector who cut up the tape into tiny slivers, rather than return it to the U.S. government. When investigators from both NASA and the U.S. Attorney’s office noticed moon dust listed for sale in St. Louis, they shut down the transaction with the cooperation of the auction house and the seller, Time reported.

More than 800 lb. (363 kg) of moon rocks, pebbles, sand and dust were ferried back to Earth during the Apollo lunar missions, which ended in late 1972. The overwhelming majority of the material was kept for analysis, but a handful of samples were given to museums, individual states and foreign dignitaries. Some are now unaccounted for, and there are many fakes for sale. A moon rock given to Missouri during the administration of Governor Christopher “Kit” Bond, who was first elected in 1972, was found last year in a box of memorabilia when Bond cleaned out his office after four terms in the U.S. Senate. Bond promptly returned the rock to the current governor, Jay Nixon.