Well, it might have been an Earth rock that got to the Moon by way of a metorite impact on Earth. These things must exist, after all.

Trouble is, I cannot recall any reports to the effect that such a thing was actually ever found. Then again, I did not read very extensively on the actual scientific results from the Apollo missions.

But it's worth a guess, I guess....

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Don't mind me if I think out loud here:

I was thinking that maybe it was a microwave oven or something, the technology of which was made possible by the apollo program (or so I am told), but the statement about this object being one of the rarest things on Earth is hard to reconcile.

Concerning the story accompanying the question, it sounds like a bunch of red herrings. Talking about the lunar landings is designed to put us all in the moon rock paradigm. It worked!. The bit about the dedication of the dedication of the thousands of people could be referring to the folks who built the visitor's center. Maybe the object is a martian meteorite that has nothing to do with the lunar landings except that it is mounted in the same building as the other lunar landing artifacts. The improbable events from millions of years ago would be the impact on mars that would send the meteor out of Martian orbit and towards Earth, and to be found etc. I alluded to this in my last post, but only got the fact that "it isnt a moon rock", so here is my direct question: Is it a meteor/meteorite ?

Of course there is the Saturn V rocket laying on its side in that building. IIRC, there are only 2 in existence, which makes it extremely rare.


Am I getting warmer?

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Rock is dead. Long live Paper and Scissors.

*
You are hot, jfribrg.**Very hot.
*
If you can identify the spacecraft that I wrote about, everything
else will fall into place.

I hadn't thought about the Saturn V, but then, I didn't get to see
it when I was at KSC (It is in a building a few miles away from
the visitor complex where I was), and a Saturn V wouldn't fit on
a waist-high display stand.**Also, I wouldn't have to look at it for
a minute or two before realizing what I was looking at.**I did see
the other remaining Saturn V almost a decade earlier when I
visited the US Space and Rocket Center at Huntsville Alabama.
I didn't need a sign to recognize that from a distance!

I'll let you cook a little longer.**I may be going out for the rest
of the day.**If so, I'll be careful not to get hit by a truck so I
can confirm your answer when I return.

***-- Jeff, in Minneapolis
*

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

FYI, there are three on display, at KSC, JSC, and Huntsville, AL (I've never seen the Alabama one).
Gosh, Jeff, I was just at KSC last week, but I'm not sure what waist-high thing you're talking about that's at the Visitor Center (and I assume you mean literally the Visitor's Center, not the Astronaut Hall of Fame, or as you said the Saturn V Building). In the Early Exploration Center there's the Gemini capsule and other displays, but I can't remember (I didn't go to that part this time) what thing is there regarding millions of years. Hmm.

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Sunset

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge. In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

How about the piece of Surveyor 3 that was retieved and brought back by Apollo 12?

Here is another "touching" moment.... APOD

[even if you're wrong. :wink: ]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

*
I should have done a better job of tying the first paragraph of
my question-- about the spacecraft landing, watching the first
images from the surface, and obtaining and analyzing the first
samples-- to the object I was looking at.**I also should have
specifically asked for the name of the spacecraft.

The correct answer has been given, but it was just a guess.
I'm waiting for jfribrg or someone to tie it all together and
show why that necessarily has to be the answer.

***-- Jeff, in Minneapolis
*

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

Viking 1 was the spacecraft (landed on Mars 20 July 1976). That's all I've got, though. #-o

__________________
- Learn a lot teaching others.

Martian meteorite as jfribrg said. It may have come from Antarctica. They are pretty rare. Viking gave us the information to identify them.

*
jfribrg wrote:
Lunar landings?**Who mentioned lunar landings???**:-)

That's what it is.

And that's how it got here.

Melusine wrote:
Right.**I called it the "visitor complex" to avoid repetition
of the word "center" as in "KSC".**It's a darned big place.
It must have ten or twelve buildings or more, some of them quite
large.**The Martian meteorite was in a building which I think
was dedicated to planetary exploration.**It was one of the less
conspicuous buildings, and not everyone would make it that far.

I wanted to comment on the display stand.**It was a small model
of Olympus Mons.**The meteorite was embedded in the top of the
mountain.**Not only silly, but misleading, as the meteorite
certainly didn't originate there, and it caused me to almost
miss noticing the meteorite.

Eroica wrote:
And that's the essential connection.

Van Rijn wrote:
Which ties it all up in a neat bundle.**Without the atmospheric
sampling done by the Viking landers, we couldn't be sure where
the meteorite came from.**I don't remember for sure, but I think
that particular rock was one of those found in antarctica.

jfribrg, you have first shot at the next question-- otherwise,
whoever has a question ready to go.

Thank you all, including you lurkers!

***-- Jeff, in Minneapolis
*

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

So who has the next question?
*wriggles his shaking hands, sends out a craving look*

__________________
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

it looks like everyone is waiting for me to ask a question. I'm not too good at this, so I will ask a "where am I" question:

I am a moon rock

I am enclosed in a clear prism

I am on a seemingly permanent display in a visitor's center that empasizes sub-orbital rockets.

micrometeor impacts are clearly visible on me

many people drive by this building on the way to see the horses, never stopping.

Where am I?

__________________
Rock is dead. Long live Paper and Scissors.

Los Alamos?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

nope. way too far west

__________________
Rock is dead. Long live Paper and Scissors.

I suppose Dublin would be too far east? :-?

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

there's a big pond between dublin and this rock.

another hint:

it is a nasa visitor's center

__________________
Rock is dead. Long live Paper and Scissors.

Ah ha ... NASA Wallops Flight Facility ... but the horses at Chincoteague and Assateague are certainly more fun to see for most.

correct. I went down there with the family. it wasn't penning week (IIRC, that is going on now), but we did go for the horses. I stopped in the visitors center. It was ok, but the highlight was definitely the moon rock. It was the only moon rock I've ever seen where the micrometeor impacts are obvious.

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Rock is dead. Long live Paper and Scissors.

Lets return to women in astronomy ... this astronomer has arguably contributed more than any other researcher to our knowledge of very hot stars and especially the stellar winds frequently associated with those stars. Her career now has extended over nearly 6 decades.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin? (but I think she died around 20 years ago) :-k

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Now while I might be amused by Cthulhians, I don't necessarily distrust them to carry out the functions of government. -- JayUtah

What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.

No ... Cecilia was certainly a giant figure in stellar astrophysics but she worked mostly with stellar atmospheres, not stellar winds. A hint ... the woman I am thinking of is Canadian.