In the 1970s, US President Richard Nixon created over 250 Goodwill Lunar Sample Displays (GLSDs) containing moon specimens from the Apollo 11 and 17 lunar missions.
These GLSDs were gifted by Nixon to over 135 countries, all 50 US states, and the United Nations. Out of these hundreds of gifts, over half of them are now missing and there are many forgeries in circulation.
In fact, a Moon rock gifted to Dutch Prime Minister Willem Drees by the US ambassador to the Netherlands was discovered to be a piece of petrified wood from Arizona.
Now, researchers at the National Facility for X-ray Computed Tomography have undertaken an investigation to authenticate the Dutch Apollo 11 Goodwill sample.
This investigation was supported by the use of our HEXITEC detector, enabling non-destructive X-ray characterisation of the sample.
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