In 1972, during the Apollo 17 mission, U.S. astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan brought back 243 pounds of moon soil and rock samples for study.
Now, half a century later, scientists are using crystals of the mineral zircon found in a rock collected by Schmitt to gain a better understanding of how the moon formed and its precise age.
According to recent research, the moon is older than previously believed. It formed over 4.46 billion years ago, which is about 40 million years earlier than scientists initially thought, within 110 million years after the birth of the solar system.
