Half a century after U.S. astronauts brought it back from the moon’s surface, a minute piece of extraterrestrial rock has finally reached its intended destination, the east Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus.
The 1.1 gram piece of moon rock was on display Thursday at an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the last of the U.S. Apollo lunar landings, and the Artemis mission — whose Orion capsule is on its way back to Earth after orbiting the moon.
That echoes the words of Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan, who said the rock would be a “symbol of what our feelings are, what the feelings of the Apollo program are, and a symbol of mankind, that we can live in peace and harmony in the future.” Apollo 17 closed out the moon program, with the three astronauts returning to Earth on Dec. 19, 1972.
It was eventually returned to NASA in the U.S. and locked up in a vault. It finally made its return to Cyprus through the efforts of Danos and will be officially handed over to the Cypriot people during a Dec. 16 ceremony at the presidential palace.
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