Faculty
Science
Supervisor Name
Dr. Gordon Osinski
Keywords
planetary geology, lunar impactites, impactites
Description
NASA's Apollo program had six manned missions that successfully landed on the Moon, in which all returned with lunar material. Included in this lunar material were lunar impactites, being described as lunar rocks that have been affected by one or more impact events. These samples were classified about 50 years ago and have not been updated since, despite our knowledge regarding both terrestrial and lunar impactites having grown. This study aims to suggest updated classifications for the 43 total Apollo mission lunar impactite samples the University of Western has currently in their possession. This study could help develop future lunar impactite classification schemes, which is becoming more useful than ever as NASA plans to return to the Moon with the Artemis program.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Gordon Osinski and the USRI program for allowing to have the opportunity to conduct this research, and Liane Loiselle for the help in the lab.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Document Type
Poster
Included in
Updating the Outdated Apollo Mission Lunar Impactite Classifications
NASA's Apollo program had six manned missions that successfully landed on the Moon, in which all returned with lunar material. Included in this lunar material were lunar impactites, being described as lunar rocks that have been affected by one or more impact events. These samples were classified about 50 years ago and have not been updated since, despite our knowledge regarding both terrestrial and lunar impactites having grown. This study aims to suggest updated classifications for the 43 total Apollo mission lunar impactite samples the University of Western has currently in their possession. This study could help develop future lunar impactite classification schemes, which is becoming more useful than ever as NASA plans to return to the Moon with the Artemis program.