Look: Biggest Moon Rock in Georgia Lands at Nearby Tellus

Tellus Science Museum in nearby Cartersville is home to the biggest moon rock in Georgia. Only the second lunar sample in the state, it's set to be on display to the public by the end of 2013. 

The other, smaller, rock from the moon is housed at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta.

NASA recently approved the Tellus' request for the "Permanent Public Lunar Sample Exhibit." Here's more about it from the museum:

The Tellus Lunar Sample is a piece of a larger rock (Lunar Sample 15555) collected by Astronaut Dave Scott during the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971. The original rock weighed about 21 pounds and was at the time the largest rock collected on Apollo 15. Officially designated Lunar Sample 15555, it was nicknamed “Great Scott” in honor of its collector. 

The original rock has been sliced for analysis and to create exhibits like this one at Tellus and other museums around the world. This sample weighs about 100 grams or 4 ounces. The sample given to Tellus was prepared in the Lunar Sample Receiving Lab at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, and hand carried to Georgia by Tellus staffer Amy Gramsey and Curator Julian Gray. 

The rock is basalt, an igneous rock composed of pyroxene, plagioclase feldspar, and olivine. It is a brownish-gray color and contains many small cavities. The age of the rock is 3.3 billion years as determined by radiogenic dating methods. It was found at the edge of a very subdued depression approximately 40 feet north of the rim of Hadley Rille. 

The crew of Apollo 15 were Commander Dave Scott, Command Module Pilot Al Worden and Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin. Their landing site was at the southeast corner of the Mare Imbrium at the base of the Apennine Mountains and near Hadley Rille. The Apollo 15 mission was the first to use the Lunar Rover, a unique vehicle that allowed the astronauts to explore parts of the landing site further from their Lunar Module base camp. Using the Lunar Rover, Astronauts Scott and Irwin traveled travel seventeen miles during their three EVAs, or extravehicular activities, also called moonwalks, which totaled 18 1/2 hours. The crew of Apollo 15 brought back the largest haul of rocks, soil and core samples to date, totaling 169 pounds. 

The Moon rock will be shown alongside three Apollo artifacts on loan from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum—an Apollo Lunar Module Ascent Rocket Engine, a Lunar Sample Return Container and a Rock Hammer. All three items were used in testing in the case of eth engine or training of the astronauts for their mission to the Moon. 

Tellus officials expect the lunar sample to be on permanent exhibit in the museum's Science in Motion Gallery in mid-December 2013.

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