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Post by galaxy on Oct 17, 2010 7:59:34 GMT -4
Why doesn't it look like a moon rock, to you ? Dutch moon rockThat picture is not the petrified wood specimen.......it isn't even the same shape as it. You can cleary see the Dutch gift is rounder and uniformly dark brown.......nice try though. ;D Compare them again. The picture below is from beneath the rock (you see on the picture above)
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Post by lukepemberton on Oct 17, 2010 8:17:02 GMT -4
True there were some orange-ish soils found by one of the later missions, but that certainly wasn't returned in '69. Soils being the opeartive word, NOT whole rocks. The orange soil is believed to be volcanic in origin and due to the presence of zinc. That is what sets it aside from the rest of the lunar crust; given how the latter is believed to have been formed. Maybe galaxy can explain why a red rock does (should) not stick out like a sore thumb? Over to you galaxy.
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Post by galaxy on Oct 17, 2010 8:24:06 GMT -4
Could it be the small rock down on the left side ? Apollo 11 rocks
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Post by philwebb59 on Oct 17, 2010 8:24:06 GMT -4
Does anybody know when the Apollo 11 sample display was actually gifted to The Netherlands? Nixon hadn't even asked for the lunar material to assemble them yet when the Apollo 11 crew made their Goodwill Tour in October 1969. The countries I can find dates for got their Apollo 11 displays along with their Apollo 17 displays in 1973-1974.
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Post by blackstar on Oct 17, 2010 8:38:20 GMT -4
One simple possibility for this oddity is that the 'with the compliments...' card and whatever it originally went with got separated and the card accidentally wound up next to the petrified wood, so someone associated the two, assuming the wood was a moon rock and leading to all this confusion.
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Post by Cavorite on Oct 17, 2010 8:58:24 GMT -4
Absolutely. That's a suggestion that's been made by several people in this thread, a suggestion that galaxy has so far avoided addressing.
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Post by dwight on Oct 17, 2010 9:01:45 GMT -4
Yeah it has to be the rock on the left side. What with it being a completely different color and all.
Chalk that one up as another job well done.
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Post by randombloke on Oct 17, 2010 9:04:13 GMT -4
I'm just gonna post this here again, because it apparently got missed by galaxy: It would be nice if you cited all your sources, and maybe didn't steal other people's bandwidth by hotlinking, galaxy. The article that goes with that picture is here.The article that goes with the moon rock picture you posted (but conveniently didn't link to) is here.The NASA lunar sample compendium can be found here and the original paper regarding sample 14310 can be found here.Photographs of most of the lunar samples can be found somewhere in the lunar sample atlas and 14310's page is hereAnyway, it looks totally unlike moon rock in several respects, not least of which is the colour. Have you ever looked up?The moon is quite clearly almost entirely grey in colour. True there were some orange-ish soils found by one of the later missions, but that certainly wasn't returned in '69. Also obvious are the effects of water erosion and mineralisation, neither of which are possible on the moon. I'll also reiterate that simply hotlinking to random photographs you found is exceptionally rude both to the people that host those images and to the people who you want to make critical analyses for you. Stop stealing other folk's bandwidth and link to actual sites in future, OK?
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Post by capricorn1 on Oct 17, 2010 9:59:10 GMT -4
That picture is not the petrified wood specimen.......it isn't even the same shape as it. You can cleary see the Dutch gift is rounder and uniformly dark brown.......nice try though. ;D Compare them again. The picture below is from beneath the rock (you see on the picture above) Ok, I take it back.....still doesn't look like a moonrock though;D
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Post by BertL on Oct 17, 2010 10:10:26 GMT -4
What I'm wondering is how the petrified wood feels in comparison to rocks. I would imagine that it would feel more like wood.
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Post by tedward on Oct 17, 2010 11:00:32 GMT -4
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Post by JayUtah on Oct 17, 2010 13:20:18 GMT -4
Why doesn't it look like a moon rock, to you ? Size: it's too big to be a gift. Color: the patches of different brownish colors are highly characteristic of petrification and utterly foreign to basalts, which are uniformly colored and gray. Patina: the Dutch specimen has clearly spent a great deal of time unprotected in an Earth environment and is permeated with oxides and visibly hydrated salts. In the first photo, where it appears adjacent to the card, you can see fracture patterns consistent with petrified wood. Petrified wood has the feel of rock, but the appearance of wood in the form of wood grain and fibers. Fracture in petrified wood follows the original wood-grain boundaries, whereas fracture in basalts follows crystalline boundaries. There is absolutely nothing about the appearance of the Dutch specimen to suggest it is intended to be a Moon rock, and much to identify as petrified wood. So far the only evidence you have presented of any such intention is the late association with a tattered card, which doesn't even identify what was presented "with the compliments" of the ambassador. It may not even have been a rock that originally accompanied the card.
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Post by gillianren on Oct 17, 2010 14:48:35 GMT -4
What I'm wondering is how the petrified wood feels in comparison to rocks. I would imagine that it would feel more like wood. The stuff I've felt does feel distinctly like rock, but it doesn't feel like the same kind of rock. The stuff I've felt, you could kind of feel the wood grain, because it had been fractured along it. (Bear in mind I'm pulling out sense memory from a decade or longer ago and excuse any errors I make.) Not in the same way you could feel an individual wood grain in a piece of regular wood, in a smoother way. I'm fairly sure it was polished, and I know you can polish basalt, but it was a lot smoother than the basalts I've felt. I seem to recall its being lighter than you'd expect, too.
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Post by slang on Oct 17, 2010 17:55:43 GMT -4
So let me see if I understand. What you and Halcyon Dayz are saying is that the petrified wood was presented to the Dutch Prime Minister to commemorate the visit by the Apollo 11 astronauts, but it was never claimed to be a moon rock? Something was presented. The happy receiver of the gift yawned and put it in his archive/locker/attic/whatever, probably in a box with other "oh my this might be important later" stuff. Receiver dies. National (non-science) museum receives the archive to commemorate the life of famous dead person, tries to figure out what goes with what in the box, and something goes wrong. *shrug* What I'm wondering is how the petrified wood feels in comparison to rocks. Perhaps we could have a certain princess talk to the thing, and find out? I'd imagine it might feel quite depressed, being the topic of such hot controversy. I suggest primal scream therapy.
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Post by Czero 101 on Oct 17, 2010 18:09:38 GMT -4
Does anybody know when the Apollo 11 sample display was actually gifted to The Netherlands? The presentation card shows the date as October 9th, 1969. Actual samples weren't distributed until after the Apollo 17 mission. Things that need to be remembered: - The rock was given to Drees privately by Middendorf and, despite their names appearing on the presentation card, there is no evidence whatsoever that Neil, Buzz or Michael were at the presentation - At the time of the presentation, Drees was nearly 83 years old, almost completely blind and almost completely deaf. - After the "rock" was given to Drees it went into his personal collection and stayed there for the next 19 years until his death in May 1988. - After Dress' death his family found it and, believing it to be an actual moon rock, donated it to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam - a fine art museum. - Once at the museum, it was in storage for another 18 years until the "Fly Me To The Moon" exhibit opened in October of 2006. - The museum did call NASA to try and get some verification of the rock and were told that while it was possible, only samples from later Apollo missions were given out in the early 1970's. Apparently the museum did no other followup. - Once on display, a qualified geologist immediately identified it as petrified rock just by looking at it. Cz
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