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Lunar rocks and regolith returned by the
Apollo missions |
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Meteorites recovered by the U.S.
Antarctic Search for Meteorites |
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Dust particles collected from the
stratosphere |
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Space-exposed surfaces retrieved from satellites or spacecraft |
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Solar Wind samples collected during the exposer of ultrapure materials
to the solar wind at the Earth-Sun L1 point |
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Cometary and Interstellar samples collected from Comet and Interstellar dust stream |
Examples:
The amount of lead in a solder droplet exceeds the amount of lead in all 382 kilograms of lunar samples. It happens that lead resulting from radioactive decay of uranium is one of the indicators used to measure the age of rocks; thus, any Earth-based lead is common in many electrical devices routinely used in laboratories but must be carefully avoided during sample curation.Moon soil contains pure iron metal, which would quickly rust in Earth's atmosphere, and water-free glass, which reacts with moisture to form clays. Samples must be kept under inert gas.
Our various curatorial laboratories deal with contamination in slightly different ways. Generally, airborne particulate contamination is controlled by air filtration, special clothing on personnel, restricting the types of materials that are used in the laboratory for tools and containers, and scrupulously cleaning the tools and containers that touch the samples. A special team of technicians cleans and certifies tools used in the laboratories. To keep samples from reacting with the Earth's atmosphere, samples are enclosed in gloved cabinets filled with pure nitrogen.
In addition to purely scientific information, accounting data, such as sample location or weight is also recorded. The curators know where the samples are and how they are being used. Computer data bases are updated daily based on work done in curatorial laboratories and information received from scientific investigators.
The curatorial staff plans to build on past experience in preparing
for the technological challenges of the future. Anticipated challenges include improvements
in materials used to touch samples, container seals, manipulation and storage of samples at
low temperature and low pressure, cost effieiencies in managing the samples, and rapid,
innovative distribution of samples and sample information to scientists and educators.
Rocks, soil and ices from Mars and comets pose special challenges to collect, transport,
store and study under their natural environmental conditions of extremely low temperatures
and pressures. For comets, temperatures of 130 K (-226 F) and vacuum conditions may be
appropriate; for Mars 230 K ( -46 F) and a pressure equal to only 1% of Earth's may be required. Future samples may come from: Moon, Mars, Space Station Cosmic Dust Collection Facility, Space-exposed hardware, comets, asteroids, other stratospheric dust samples such as volcanic ash, and special Earth samples.