New details about the small pieces of the moon gifted by the United States to Ireland in 1970 have now been unearthed. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Apollo 11 lunar samples, themselves.
The four moon pebbles, which were embedded in a single lucite ball and mounted to a wooden podium together with a small flag of Ireland that was flown on NASA's first lunar landing, was one of 135 such goodwill presentations that the U.S. made to foreign countries following the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Additional displays were prepared for the United Nations, Vatican City, the 50 U.S. states and the U.S. territories.
Although many of those displays have gone missing in the intervening years, the fate of Ireland's Apollo 11 display has been known for decades. Tragically, it was caught up in an Oct. 3, 1977 fire that tore through Dunsink Observatory in Dublin, where the 0.002 ounces (0.05 grams) of Apollo 11 moon dust was on display.
