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We're taking a deep dive into the 
world of moon rocks and the mind-blowing  

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technology that NASA uses to study these 
remarkable rocks from space... next, on Real World. 

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[Music]

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The Moon, our closest celestial neighbor,
has fascinated humans for centuries. Thanks to  

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NASA's Apollo missions, we have been able to bring 
back rock samples from the Moon and study them in  

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detail. But, how many samples were collected and 
what do we know about them? Across the six Apollo  

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missions they collected 2,196 individually 
numbered samples. There are so many different  

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types of sample that they brought back. The biggest 
division is rocks versus soil, so they brought back  

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about 2/3 rock and about 1/3 soil. Within each 
of those divisions you have different types  

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of rocks. You have rocks that are what we call 
igneous - they form from molten lava. And then we  

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have rocks that are sedimentary that form through 
impact processes and so each of those answers  

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different questions about the Moon and then with 
the soils we brought back surface soils and deep  

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soils and deep, deep soils and each of those tells 
us something different about solar system and  

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lunar history. When we talk about soil on the 
Moon, it's really what we call regolith and the  

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difference is soil involves a chemical process. 
So soil on Earth has worms in it, it has water  

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there's a chemical breakdown of the material into 
soil. Moon doesn't have any of that. The Moon is  

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entirely a physical process and so we call that a 
regolith but most people think of it as soil. Math  

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is used every day at every level when we curate 
the samples and when people study the samples. At  

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the most basic we have to keep track of the mass 
so we have to be able to add and subtract as we  

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we started with a kilogram of sample and then we 
subtracted off 100 milligrams to send to you now  

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how much do we have left so that's very basic 
but it's very important because it's what lets  

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us know how much we have left. We've also used 
math to calculate the density of a rock and so  

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so density equals the mass of something divided by 
the volume of that of the material you're weighing.  

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So if you know how much it weighs and you know how 
big it is then you can figure out the density. So  

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the normal way to calculate the density of a rock 
is to actually just to weigh it and then you need  

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to figure out the volume of the rock and you 
could figure out the volume of a rock by using  

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um a laser 3D scanner and in fact this is done 
quite commonly on terrestrial samples uh where  

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you put the rock and you scan it with a laser 
and it gives you a very precise volume and then  

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you weigh it and then the density is relatively 
straightforward to figure out after that you just  

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divide the mass by the volume and there's your 
density. Once the scientists get the samples they  

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use math in everything they do. Whoa! There are so 
many different types of samples available for  

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researchers to study and so many different ways 
for them to study them, but how do we protect  

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these samples and how do we make sure that they 
are not contaminated with particles from Earth?  

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We're working in a clean room for the fact that we 
need to keep the samples that came from the Moon  

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in the same pristine state that they were in when 
they were collected. It's important to use a clean  

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room because we want to make sure that what's 
being analyzed is actually from the Moon versus  

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analyzing what's actually on Earth. There were six 
missions that the astronauts brought back 842 lbs  

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of rocks, 382 kg of rocks, are processed in nitrogen-filled cabinets in the Lunar Lab. And we process them  

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in that environment so that we're not contaminating. 
The Lunar Lab is actually a ISO 6 lab; we have a  

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Return Processing Lab that's actually ISO 7. Those 
ISO numbers, or government numbers, saying the  

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cleanliness of laboratories. There's procedures 
step by step in order to enter the laboratory.  

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We actually don uh hat, booties, gloves, bunny suit.
These rooms are all pressurized so that the clean  

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air is flowing outward and dirty air doesn't go 
in. Who ever would have thought that a rock would  

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need to be so clean? Now that we know about the 
different types of Moon rocks that we have and  

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how we protect them from contamination, what kind 
of math is used to help curate and process these  

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lunar artifacts? When a sample is processed, 
the database has the original weight that  

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was given when the sample came back, so that mass 
is recorded in the database. So once we weigh the  

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sample it has to be within the balance tolerance. 
That's where our math is involved. NASA waited  

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50 years to open up the samples that they had on 
reserve until someone would put in a request that was  

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different using updated and different technology 
because technology definitely has changed from the  

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70s to now. With the CT scanning, you can look at a 
sample and you will actually see what's inside of  

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a sample. If it's a large class if they're small 
classes before you even decide I want to break  

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this rock, you know what's inside of the rock. These 
rocks are out of this world!  Seriously, they're  

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from the Moon. It truly is amazing that we can 
learn so much from an object as simple as a rock.  

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And thanks to the work from rock stars like Ryan 
and Andrea, we are one step closer to understanding  

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and appreciating the wonders of our universe. 
And that is rock solid! See you next time on Real

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World.