![]() ![]() Zircon crystals formed as the moon cooled 4.46 billion years ago, and a new analysis traced them in the Apollo 17 samples. The moon was created when a Mars-size object crashed into Earth, flinging a large rocky piece into space that went into orbit around our planet. More than 50 years after the sample was collected, scientists detected crystals in lunar dust that revealed the moon is 40 million years older than previously believed. When Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt scooped up rocks and dust from the lunar surface in 1972, they unknowingly brought back the answer to one of the biggest questions about the moon: its age. Geologist and astronaut Harrison Schmitt used an adjustable sampling scoop to retrieve lunar samples during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
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