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One of the signs accompanying the moon rock. It reads

A Piece of the Moon

What We Learned About the Moon

Unveiling the Moon's Mysteries

What did this Moon rock, other specimens, and research conducted by the astronauts teach us about our only natural satellite?

• The Moon is sterile; there is no evidence of animal or vegetable life.
• The Moon apparently lacks water totally, unless ice or permafrost still lingers beneath the surface.
• The Moon is about 4.5 billion years old. How it was first formed is still a mystery. The Apollo flights seemed to prove that it was not torn from the Earth, as was once thought.
• Like Earth, the Moon shows evidence of internal heating. It also has a crust, beneath that a mantle, and at the center, a core. The lunar core is possibly iron sulphide.
• It surface was reshaped by planetoid and meteoroid impacts that reached a peak about 3.9 billion years ago. The solar wind, a stream of gases emitted from the sun, has further eroded the surface.

Moon rock on loan from National Aeronautics and Space Administration