Big Bertha (lunar sample)
Lunar Sample 14321, better known as "Big Bertha", is a
Discovery
Big Bertha was named after the famous large World War I German howitzer Big Bertha because it was the largest rock returned from the Moon up to that time. It was collected by Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard near the rim of Cone Crater, during the second EVA at station C1.[1][2]
Transcript from the Apollo 14 Lunar Surface Journal:
[133:44:29] Mitchell: (Garbled) help with that one?
[133:44:30] Shepard: That's all right, I think I got it. There's a football-size rock, Houston, coming out of this area, which will not be bagged. It appears to be the prevalent rock of the boulders of the area. Got it?
[133:44:41] Mitchell: Got it.[3]
Earth rock
In January 2019, research showed that a fragment (
If the rock is indeed terrestrial, lunar geologist David Kring said that it can provide valuable information about the Hadean eon. Big Bertha shows that Earth was impacted by asteroids massive enough to produce new meteors, and granitic rocks that make up Earth's continents were already forming. Geochemist Elizabeth Bell noted that the Moon might be a better place to look for ancient Earth rocks than Earth itself, as material erodes much slower on the Moon's surface than it does on Earth, and Kring suggested the discovery of Big Bertha's nature as an Earth-origin meteorite may compel other scientists to search through Apollo lunar samples.[6]
See also
References
- ^ "Lunar Sample 14321" (URL). Lunar and Planetary Institute. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
- ^ "14321, Clast-rich, Crystalline Matrix Breccia, 8998 grams" (PDF). Lunar and Planetary Institute. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
- ^ "Geology at Cone Crater" (URL). NASA. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
- Wikidata Q63214434.
- ^ "A lunar rock sample found by Apollo 14 astronauts likely came from Earth" (URL). Astronomy. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
- ^ Lovett, Richard A. (2019-01-29). "Ancient Earth rock found on the moon". Science.