b'Space rocksFeatureSpace rocks on display at Geoscience AustraliaJonathan Clarke glass between larger crystals) to intergranular. Different thin Geoscience Australia sections reveal 70215 as a fine grained, sub-variolitic basalt Jon.Clarke@ga.gov.au with microphenocrysts of ilmenite, olivine, and clinopyroxene. Steven Petkovski Localised sheafs of plagioclase laths are present. Chemically Geoscience Australia 70215 contains 13% titanium and thus belongs to the lunar Steven.Petkovski@ga.gov.au high Ti basalt province. The sample has been successfully dated using Ar-Ar and K-Ar methods, with a whole-rock plateau age of 3.84 0.04 Ga and an exposure age of 10012 Ma (Apollo 17 Introduction sample catalog 2016, and references therein).Geoscience Australia recently opened a new public displayAt 8.1 kg, sample 70215 is the largest rock brought back by of space rocks to commemorate the 50th anniversary of theApollo 17, many of the offcuts have been distributed to various Apollo 11 landing on the Moon (Figure 1). The centrepiece isinstitutions to allow the public to touch. It is the only lunar a touch sample collected from the Moon by Jack Schmitt, thesample which the public can access in this way.only geologist to visit another world, on the Apollo 17 mission, the last time anyone went to the Moon. Two other samplesNWA 11273lunar feldspathic brecciaare particularly noteworthy; meteorites from Mars and the Moon. There are also a number of other meteorites on view,The second lunar sample on display is a lunaite, a meteorite that representing all the significant classes. originated from the Moon. Its full sample ID is 11273-19-015. All lunar meteorites have been ejected following impact, because Apollo 17 sample 70215 of the low lunar gravity (0.17 G) any crater larger than a few km is likely to impart velocities in excess of the lunar escape This sample came from approximately 60 km east of the Apollovelocity to some of its ejecta (Head et al. 2002). Although lunar 17 lunar module (LM), Challenger (Figure 2). Its unusuallymeteorites are likely to have been falling on Earth throughout dark and massive appearance called Jack Schmitts attentiongeologic time, all those known were ejected in the past 20 during previous extravehicular activity (EVA 2) and he took themillion years and some as recently as a few hundred years opportunity to collect it during EVA 3. The transcript can be readago (Gladman and Burns 1996, Nishiizumi et al. 2005). Such at the Apollo Lunar surface Journal (2015). meteorites were not found until after the Apollo missions, the first being discovered in Antarctica in 1979.Sample 70215 (or, to give it its full name of 70215,396, making it the 396th piece from the sample) was describedAt the time of writing (22/7/19) 405 lunar meteorite samples as a medium dark grey, brownish tinted, fine-grained basaltare known, many of these are paired samples, that is, samples containing micrometeorite pits on all faces. Rare vughs upfrom a single parent body that have fragmented either to 3 mm in diameter are also present. The shape is blockyduring their atmospheric passage or on impact. Lunaites are to subangular with one flat surface slicken-sided. Under thesignificant not only because they add significantly to the microscope the vughs contain projecting plates and prismsmass of lunar material available for study but because they of ilmenite and pyroxene. The fabric is intersertal (containingoriginate from different parts of the Moon than were visited Figure 1.Opening of the display. Left to right Steve Petkovski (GA), Anthony Murfett (Deputy Head of the Australian Space Agency), Badri Younes (Deputy Associate Administrator, NASA), and Steve Hill (GA). They are standing behind the display of the Apollo 17 touchstone the and lunar and Martian meteorites.OCTOBER 2019 PREVIEW 44'