Lunar Sample 14321, better known as "Big Bertha", is a lunar sample containing an embedded Earth-origin meteorite collected on the 1971 Apollo 14 mission. It was found in the Fra Mauro region of the Moon. Big Bertha is the first discovered meteorite from Earth, and the embedded meteorite portion is the oldest known Earth rock. At 8.998 kg (19.84 lb), this breccia rock is the third largest Moon sample returned during the Apollo program, behind Big Muley and Great Scott.
Big Bertha was named after the famous large World War I German howitzer Big Bertha because it was the largest rock returned from the Moon up to that time. It was collected by Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard near the rim of Cone Crater, during the second EVA at station C1. [1] [2]
Transcript from the Apollo 14 Lunar Surface Journal:
[133:44:29] Mitchell: (Garbled) help with that one?
[133:44:30] Shepard: That's all right, I think I got it. There's a football-size rock, Houston, coming out of this area, which will not be bagged. It appears to be the prevalent rock of the boulders of the area. Got it?
[133:44:41] Mitchell: Got it. [3]
In January 2019, research showed that a fragment (clast) embedded in Big Bertha has numerous characteristics that make it very likely to be a terrestrial (Earth) meteorite. Granite and quartz, which are commonly found on Earth but very rare to find on the Moon, were confirmed to exist in this fragment. To find the sample's age, the research team from Curtin University looked at bits of the mineral zircon embedded in its structure. "By determining the age of zircon found in the sample, we were able to pinpoint the age of the host rock at about four billion years old, making it similar to the oldest rocks on Earth", researcher Alexander Nemchin said, adding that "the chemistry of the zircon in this sample is very different from that of every other zircon grain ever analyzed in lunar samples, and remarkably similar to that of zircons found on Earth". This means Big Bertha is both the first discovered terrestrial meteorite and the oldest known Earth rock. [4] [5]
If the rock is indeed terrestrial, lunar geologist David Kring said that it can provide valuable information about the Hadean eon. Big Bertha shows that Earth was impacted by asteroids massive enough to produce new meteors, and granitic rocks that make up Earth's continents were already forming. Geochemist Elizabeth Bell noted that the Moon might be a better place to look for ancient Earth rocks than Earth itself, as material erodes much slower on the Moon's surface than it does on Earth, and Kring suggested the discovery of Big Bertha's nature as an Earth-origin meteorite may compel other scientists to search through Apollo lunar samples. [6]
Apollo 14 was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions", landings at specific sites of scientific interest on the Moon for two-day stays with two lunar extravehicular activities.
Mare Imbrium is a vast lava plain within the Imbrium Basin on the Moon and is one of the larger craters in the Solar System. The Imbrium Basin formed from the collision of a proto-planet during the Late Heavy Bombardment. Basaltic lava later flooded the giant crater to form the flat volcanic plain seen today. The basin's age has been estimated using uranium–lead dating methods to approximately 3.9 billion years ago, and the diameter of the impactor has been estimated to be 250 ± 25 km. The Moon's maria have fewer features than other areas of the Moon because molten lava pooled in the craters and formed a relatively smooth surface. Mare Imbrium is not as flat as it would have originally been when it first formed as a result of later events that have altered its surface.
A lunar meteorite is a meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon. A meteorite hitting the Moon is normally classified as a transient lunar phenomenon.
Tektites are gravel-sized bodies composed of black, green, brown or grey natural glass formed from terrestrial debris ejected during meteorite impacts. The term was coined by Austrian geologist Franz Eduard Suess (1867–1941), son of Eduard Suess. They generally range in size from millimetres to centimetres. Millimetre-scale tektites are known as microtektites.
Lappajärvi is a lake in Finland, in the municipalities of Lappajärvi, Alajärvi and Vimpeli. It is formed in a 23 km (14 mi) wide, partly eroded meteorite impact crater. The lake is part of Ähtävänjoki basin together with Lake Evijärvi that is located downstream (north) of it.
The Genesis Rock is a sample of Moon rock retrieved by Apollo 15 astronauts James Irwin and David Scott in 1971 during the second lunar EVA, at Spur crater. With a mass of c. 270 grams, it is currently stored at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility in Houston, Texas.
The geology of the Moon is quite different from that of Earth. The Moon lacks a true atmosphere, and the absence of free oxygen and water eliminates erosion due to weather. Instead, the surface is eroded much more slowly through the bombardment of the lunar surface by micrometeorites. It does not have any known form of plate tectonics, it has a lower gravity, and because of its small size, it cooled faster. In addition to impacts, the geomorphology of the lunar surface has been shaped by volcanism, which is now thought to have ended less than 50 million years ago. The Moon is a differentiated body, with a crust, mantle, and core.
Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as meteorites.
The oldest dated rocks formed on Earth, as an aggregate of minerals that have not been subsequently broken down by erosion or melted, are more than 4 billion years old, formed during the Hadean Eon of Earth's geological history, and mark the start of the Archean Eon, which is defined to start with the formation of the oldest intact rocks on Earth. Meteorites that were formed in other planetary systems can pre-date Earth. Particles from the Murchison meteorite were dated in January 2020 to be 7 billion years old.
The Lunar Magma Ocean (LMO) is the layer of molten rock that is theorized to have been present on the surface of the Moon. The Lunar Magma Ocean was likely present on the Moon from the time of the Moon's formation to tens or hundreds of millions of years after that time. It is a thermodynamic consequence of the Moon's relatively rapid formation in the aftermath of a giant impact between the proto-Earth and another planetary body. As the Moon accreted from the debris from the giant impact, gravitational potential energy was converted to thermal energy. Due to the rapid accretion of the Moon, thermal energy was trapped since it did not have sufficient time to thermally radiate away energy through the lunar surface. The subsequent thermochemical evolution of the Lunar Magma Ocean explains the Moon's largely anorthositic crust, europium anomaly, and KREEP material.
The Bench Crater meteorite is a meteorite discovered on the Moon by Apollo 12 astronauts in 1969. It is part of the friable basalt lunar sample 12037. Found on the north-west rim of the Bench Crater, it is the first meteorite to be discovered on a Solar System body other than the Earth. Its diameter is just a few millimeters. It is listed as a carbonaceous chondrite by the Meteoritical Society.
Suevite is a rock consisting partly of melted material, typically forming a breccia containing glass and crystal or lithic fragments, formed during an impact event. It forms part of a group of rock types and structures that are known as impactites.
The Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), or lunar cataclysm, is a hypothesized astronomical event thought to have occurred approximately 4.1 to 3.8 billion years (Ga) ago, at a time corresponding to the Neohadean and Eoarchean eras on Earth. According to the hypothesis, during this interval, a disproportionately large number of asteroids and comets collided into the terrestrial planets and their natural satellites of the inner Solar System, including Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. These came from both post-accretion and planetary instability-driven populations of impactors. Although it used to be widely accepted, it remained difficult to provide an overwhelming amount of evidence for the hypothesis. However, recent re-appraisal of the cosmo-chemical constraints indicates that there was likely no late spike in the bombardment rate.
Traces of Catastrophe: A Handbook of Shock-Metamorphic Effects in Terrestrial Meteorite Impact Structures is a book written by Bevan M. French of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a comprehensive technical reference on the science of impact craters. It was published in 1998 by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), which is part of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). It was originally available in hard copy from LPI, but is now only available as a portable document format (PDF) e-book free download.
Lunar Sample 61016, better known as "Big Muley", is a lunar sample discovered and collected on the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 in the Descartes Highlands, on the rim of Plum crater, near Flag crater. It is the largest sample returned from the Moon as part of the Apollo program. The rock, an 11.7 kg (26 lb) breccia consisting mainly of shocked anorthosite attached to a fragment of troctolitic "melt rock", is named after Bill Muehlberger, the Apollo 16 field geology team leader.
Allan Hills A81005 or ALH A81005 was the first lunar meteorite found on Earth. It was found in 1982 in the Allan Hills at the end of the Transantarctic Mountains, during a meteorite gathering expedition (ANSMET).
North Ray crater is a small crater in the Descartes Highlands of the Moon visited by the astronauts of Apollo 16. The name of the crater was formally adopted by the IAU in 1973. It is the largest crater sampled by astronauts during the Apollo program.
Reidite is a rare polymorph of ZrSiO4 created when zircon experiences high pressure and temperature. Reidite is denser than zircon and has the same crystal structure as scheelite. All natural occurrences of reidite are associated with meteorite impact events.
Spur is a feature on Earth's Moon, a crater in the Hadley–Apennine region. Astronauts David Scott and James Irwin visited it in 1971, on the Apollo 15 mission, during EVA 2. Spur was designated Geology Station 7.
Hadean zircon is the oldest-surviving crustal material from the Earth's earliest geological time period, the Hadean eon, about 4 billion years ago. Zircon is a mineral that is commonly used for radiometric dating because it is highly resistant to chemical changes and appears in the form of small crystals or grains in most igneous and metamorphic host rocks.
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