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Inside NASA's Space Rock Vault (arstechnica.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the created-by-a-hollywood-prop-company dept.

An anonymous reader writes: In an unassuming building at Johnson Space Center, NASA maintains clean rooms and employs curators to support its collection of rocks and other matter from elsewhere in the solar system. Ars got to tour the facility and take pictures of the samples inside. "The collection houses about 20,000 rocks, but the most famous of those rocks is ALH84001. Sometime around 16 million years ago, a large meteorite or asteroid 0.5 to 1 km across or larger struck the Martian surface and blasted some rocks into space at a speed greater than the red planet's escape velocity. One of them flew through space until about 13,000 years ago when it crashed into Antarctica." NASA keeps bits of a comet trapped in aerogel, as well as the remains of the Genesis probe that captured particles of solar wind. Of course, this is dwarfed by the vast collection of lunar rock samples brought back by the Apollo missions. Some of them have yet to be opened. "They were collected in the vacuum of the lunar surface, placed inside vacuum sealed tubes, and remain that way to this day. NASA is preserving them for some theoretical future where science has progressed to enable some new, powerful method of analysis."

11 comments

  1. future by quenda · · Score: 2

    A theoretical future where technology has advanced in unimaginable ways, but we are unable to go back to the moon for more samples?
    Incon ... oh wait, we're there already.

    1. Re:future by KeensMustard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unable and Unwilling are different things. We could send a collection probe easily enough if there were sufficient interest in more rocks.

    2. Re:future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There you go; we've gotten better at handling information and handling smaller and smaller amounts of matter. But putting kerosene into a giant tank and pointing it at the Moon can't really change.

      The Russians did it with Luna 16.

    3. Re:future by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      Somehow, I always knew that the first Moon Landings would be during my lifetime, although I didn't expect them to be televised in real time. Now, I can only hope that I haven't seen the last ones already.

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      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    4. Re:future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? What's so amazing about a handful of test pilots in diapers flying in a tin can to bounce on a dead rock for a few hours?

      Do you also wax nostalgic about the voyages to the bottom of the ocean in the 1960s?

  2. Gotta hear it! by jddj · · Score: 1

    NASA's collection of vintage Gong, Steve Hillage, Kit Watkins and Hawkwind rivals the Vatican Porn Archives!

  3. My internet filter won't let me see mars rocks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously? What, is there a nude model posing with the rock? Email has been sent to the idiot administering my internet filter. I just wanted to make a point about idiots running internet censorship.

  4. Careful with that Genesis probe by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

    It might reorganize the planet's matter on a molecular level, destroying all life on Earth in favor of its' new matrix.

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    1. Re:Careful with that Genesis probe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ooooh, can we make a matrix in which people will know how to use the apostrophe?

      its = possessive
      it's = it is
      its' = WTF?????

  5. sure by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    "Some of them have yet to be opened. "They were collected in the vacuum of the lunar surface, placed inside vacuum sealed tubes, and remain that way to this day.""

    You mean, ASIDE from the ones a couple of interns laid out and had sex on, right?
    http://gizmodo.com/5242736/how...

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    -Styopa