Arkansas lunar sample displays facts for kids
The Arkansas lunar sample displays are two special displays. They hold tiny pieces of Moon rock. These rocks were brought back from the Moon by the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 space missions. In the 1970s, U.S. President Richard Nixon gave these displays to the people of Arkansas as friendly gifts.
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What Are These Moon Displays?
The Apollo 11 Display
The Apollo 11 Moon display in Arkansas has four tiny pieces of Moon rock. These "Moon rocks" are about the size of a grain of rice. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin collected them in 1969. The display also includes a small Arkansas state flag. This flag traveled to the Moon and back on Apollo 11.
The four tiny Moon rocks weigh very little, about 0.05 grams in total. They are sealed inside a clear plastic button, like a coin. This button is attached to a wooden board, about one foot square. The board stands on a small display stand. The small Arkansas state flag is placed right below the Moon rocks. President Richard Nixon gave this display to the people of Arkansas. Other states and countries around the world also received similar Moon rock displays.
Messages at the bottom of the wooden display say:
First message:
Presented to
the people of the State of
Arkansas
by
Richard Nixon,
President of the United States of America.
Second message:
This flag of your state was carried
to the Moon and back by Apollo 11 and
this fragment of the Moon's surface was
brought to Earth by the crew of that first
manned lunar landing.
The Apollo 17 Display
The Apollo 17 Moon display for Arkansas is a special plaque. It measures about 10 by 14 inches. It has one piece of Moon rock cut from a larger rock called lunar basalt 70017. It also has an Arkansas state flag. Astronaut Harrison Schmitt collected the basalt 70017 rock on the Moon in 1972.
After the rock came back to Earth, it was cut into small pieces. The piece given to Arkansas weighed about 1.142 grams. This Moon rock piece was put inside a plastic ball. The ball was then attached to the wooden plaque. The Arkansas state flag, which also went to the Moon and back on Apollo 17, was on the plaque too. President Richard Nixon gave this plaque to Arkansas in 1973. He gave similar gifts to all 50 states. This was a way to promote peace and friendship.
A Missing Moon Rock Story
The Arkansas Apollo 17 Moon display was first given to Governor David Pryor in 1976. Bill Clinton became governor after Pryor. This Apollo 17 display, with its valuable Moon rock, was reported missing around 1980. This happened when Clinton lost his first try for re-election as governor. It seems the display was packed away with Clinton's official papers. It was then forgotten for about 30 years.
In 2011, someone who organizes old records, called an archivist, found it. The director of the Central Arkansas Library System said the archivist found it in a box. The box was full of Clinton's old papers in the basement of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock. The plastic ball holding the Moon rock was broken off the wooden plaque. It was lying at the bottom of the box. Luckily, it has since been fixed and reattached.
It's not clear how the Apollo 17 Moon display ended up in Clinton's boxes. The library director thinks that when Clinton became governor in 1978, the previous governor left the display in the office for Clinton to look after. When Clinton lost the election in 1980, everything was packed into 2,000 boxes and stored away. This included the Moon display. Thirty years later, the archivist found it while looking through these boxes. He knew what it was right away. He gave it to his director, who then gave it to the right people. Now, it is on display at the Arkansas Museum of Discovery in Little Rock.
According to Robert Pearlman, who studies Moon rocks, the Arkansas Apollo 11 display is also at the Arkansas Museum of Discovery.
Images for kids
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The Central Arkansas Library where the Moon rock display was found.
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