Dubbed 73001, the sample in question was collected by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in December 1972, during the Apollo 17 mission — the last of the program
The Apollo missions to the Moon brought a total of 2,196 rock samples to Earth. But NASA has only just started opening one of the last ones, collected 50 years ago.
For all that time, some tubes were kept sealed so that they could be studied years later, with the help of the latest technical breakthroughs.