Unidentified man pays half a million dollars for dust from the surface of the moon at auction
Lunar dust collected by American astronaut Neil Armstrong during his 1969 moon landing has been offered at a Bonhams auction.
According to the auction house on April 14, an unknown man paid $500,000 for lunar surface pills.
Collecting material from the lunar surface was one of the main tasks during the US Apollo 11 mission.
Armstrong collected about 1 kilogram of rock in a prepared bag.
According to Bonhams, the bag was lost by NASA and ended up in the personal collection of the former curator of the Hutchinson Space Museum.
It was then confiscated and sold as compensation at auction.
The buyer sent the bag to NASA for identification and testing.
Then, the space agency confirmed that the bag was indeed from the Apollo 11 mission.
When it turned out that the dust in the bag was indeed from the moon, NASA refused to return it to Jupiter, in order to prevent valuable materials from falling into the hands of individuals.
When the litigation began, NASA was forced to waive after two years of litigation.
Carlson sold the bag to someone for £1.4m in 2017, and the dust wasn't listed separately until 2022.
Society
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news