Real or Fake Moon Rock ?

[Swamp Gas ?]

"The Dutch national museum said Thursday that one of its prized possessions, a rock supposedly brought back from the moon by U.S. astronauts, is just a piece of petrified wood.

Rijksmuseum spokeswoman Xandra van Gelder, who oversaw the investigation that proved the piece was a fake, said the museum will keep it anyway as a curiosity.

"It's a good story, with some questions that are still unanswered," she said. "We can laugh about it."

The museum acquired the rock after the death of former Prime Minister Willem Drees in 1988. Drees received it as a private gift on Oct. 9, 1969, from then-U.S. ambassador J. William Middendorf during a visit by the three Apollo 11 astronauts, part of their "Giant Leap" goodwill tour after the first moon landing."

So - is it a fake "rock" passed over by the US or did they bring back fosilised (petrified) wood from the moon ?

[John]

NASA have detailed records of where every gram of rock bought back from the Apollo missions ended up - even the samples that were made up as gifts from the US Administration to senior officials around the world. Their records include which mission collected which samples as well. As each gram of samples cost an estimated $250,000 to obtain the record keeping is pretty exhaustive.

So if the Dutch sample is real then NASA will know. If it's not on their list it's almost certainly fake. An analysis by a recognised lab (eg: the Natural History Museum) will quickly reveal it's true identity - they only need a few milligrams to test.

Incidently I've got 3 small (very small !!) specimens of lunar rock in my meteorite collection - but mine are pieces of metorites that have been proven to originate from the moon - interestingly the Apollo missions returned 382 kg of samples in total wheras the total mass of known lunar meteorites is currently less than 50 kg.

John

[Swamp Gas ?]

oops .. forgot to add the articles source !

'Moon Rock' in Dutch Museum Is Just Petrified Wood

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Fake Dutch 'moon rock' revealed

[John]

oops .. forgot to add the articles source !

'Moon Rock' in Dutch Museum Is Just Petrified Wood

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Fake Dutch 'moon rock' revealed

That looks like no lunar rock that I've ever seen (they have a really nice authentic piece in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff). Even the famous "orange soil" found by Apollo 17 was not really very orange when examined samples back on earth.

I wonder if someone "swiched" the original piece to get some genuine stuff for themselves - especially if it's value is over £300K ?

Come to think of it that card does not look very authentic either .... the USA usually slap their crest on anything official.

I'm suprised that it's not been questioned before this !.

John

[Swamp Gas ?]

The fact that most samples handed out to the 100 plus countries on the little tour that they did weighed just over a gram and not this fist sized piece is also a bit of a give away.

I reckon the Dutch PM was not as impressed with his little , "after dinner" curiosity and substituted a more substantial piece.

Could be slightly embarrassing for his surviving family !

[skye at night]

"The Dutch national museum said Thursday that one of its prized possessions, a rock supposedly brought back from the moon by U.S. astronauts, is just a piece of petrified wood.

WoW!!! So there were trees on the moon in the distant past....

Why isn't this on all the front pages? It's bigger than the Mars bacteria story...

Steve