Apollo 11 brought back 21.5 kilograms of lunar samples. The material included rocks, soil, dust, and small fragments collected near the mission’s landing site in the Sea of Tranquility. It was humanity’s first successful return of samples from another celestial body.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin gathered the material during their 2-hour, 31-minute moonwalk on July 20–21, 1969. They used scoops, tongs, sample bags, and a contingency sample container to collect material from both the surface and shallow subsurface. The samples were sealed in special containers to protect them from contamination during the return journey.
The Apollo 11 collection weighed about 47 pounds and consisted of 58 principal samples. Scientists found that the rocks were ancient volcanic basalts and breccias, helping establish the Moon’s geological history and confirming that its dark maria were formed by volcanic activity. A common mix-up is confusing Apollo 11’s 21.5 kilograms with the roughly 382 kilograms returned by all six lunar-surface Apollo missions combined.