Carnegie Science Center puts moon rock from Apollo mission on display

A moon rock collected during a 1971 Apollo mission to the moon will be making its home at Carnegie Science Center for at least the next five years.

The moon rock was taken by crew members of Apollo 15, in the fourth human landing on the moon, from the top of a meter-sized boulder at Station 4 on the rim of Dune Crater.

It weighs just 74 grams (about 2.6 ounces).

It was brought to Pittsburgh this week by Marcus Harshaw, senior director of museum experiences for the Carnegie Science Center. Harshaw traveled to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and brought the moon rock back Tuesday night.

By Wednesday morning, Harshaw was placing the rock in an unbreakable glass case, where it will be displayed as part of the “Mars: The Next Giant Leap” exhibition on a temporary five-year loan. The Science Center can reapply for the loan after five years.

“It’s a very competitive process,” Harshaw said. “Museums and science centers from all around the world apply to NASA to host a moon rock. So, the fact that the Carnegie Science Center is able to host a moon rock is tremendous. It’s really terrific for our community, for Pittsburghers to come and have an authentic moon experience.”

A sliver of Mars also is displayed in the exhibition. The meteorite, discovered in 2015 in northwest Africa, is a piece of Martian lava that scientists believe was blasted off from Mars after being struck by an incoming meteorite and eventually was captured by Earth’s gravity.

According to Harshaw, the Johnson Space Center and the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida are the only other places that can boast having both a moon and a Mars rock.

But how does a moon rock fit into a Mars exhibition?

“A moon rock fits perfectly in an exhibition about Mars because we cannot put humans on Mars without first returning to and building a more permanent settlement on the moon,” Harshaw said.

NASA currently has a goal of putting humans back on the moon by 2024.

“It’s important to go back to the moon first because the moon provides us an opportunity to learn how we live long term on another body outside of the Earth,” Harshaw said. “And because of the lower atmosphere (and lower gravity) on the moon, it provides us an opportunity to actually launch to go to Mars much easier than it would be to launch from the Earth to go to Mars.”

Strengthening the Pittsburgh connection, the moon rock was found in a place that was very rich in iron, and by a crew of astronauts that included Pittsburgh native James Irwin.