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Handling Apollo Samples Inside a Glove Box

The headshot image of NASA

NASA

Jul 15, 2019
Image Article
Biologist Elaine Muñoz transfers an Apollo 11 lunar sample in the glove box in NASA Ames’s Lunar Biological Laboratory.
Biologist Elaine Muñoz transfers an Apollo 11 lunar sample in the glove box in NASA Ames’s Lunar Biological Laboratory.

Biologist Elaine Muñoz transfers an Apollo 11 lunar sample in the glove box in the Lunar Biological Laboratory at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

These photos from 1969 show researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center examining samples of Moon rocks and soil and that astronauts brought back from the Apollo 11 mission. The researchers are looking for signs of life endemic to the Moon, as well as organic compounds that are the basic building blocks of life. Of course, no lunar life was found in these samples, and we now know that the Moon does not harbor life. Nevertheless, these tests became the first time that NASA looked for the possibility of life existing on another world using samples from that world.

Learn more about the Lunar Biological Lab at NASA Ames here.

Credits: NASA/Zabower