Lunar Sample 14321, better known as "Big Bertha", is alunar sample collected on the 1971Apollo 14 mission. It was found in theFra Mauro region of the Moon. At 8.998 kg (19.84 lb), thisbreccia rock is the third largest Moon sample returned during theApollo program, behindBig Muley andGreat Scott.
Big Bertha contains an embedded fragment of granite-like rock which may have been ejected from the Earth by ameteorite impact billions of years ago.[1] If this origin were to be confirmed, that fragment would be theoldest known Earth rock. This claim has been disputed, however.[2]
Big Bertha was named after the famous largeWorld War I GermanhowitzerBig Bertha because it was the largest rock returned from the Moon up to that time. It was collected by Apollo 14 commanderAlan Shepard near the rim ofCone Crater, during the secondEVA at station C1.[3][4]
Transcript from the Apollo 14 Lunar Surface Journal:
[133:44:29] Mitchell: (Garbled) help with that one?
[133:44:30] Shepard: That's all right, I think I got it. There's a football-size rock, Houston, coming out of this area, which will not be bagged. It appears to be the prevalent rock of the boulders of the area. Got it?
[133:44:41] Mitchell: Got it.[5]
Like many rocks found on the surface of the Moon, Big Bertha is abreccia, an assemblage of smaller rock fragments (clasts) welded together by meteorite impacts. In January 2019, it was observed that one of the embedded fragments, about 2cm wide and weighing about 1.8g, consisted offelsite, a type ofgranite that is relatively rare on the Moon. Measurement ofcerium andtitanium ions in minutezircon grains andquartz crystals contained in that fragment were said to be inconsistent with a lunar origin, but consistent with a terrestrial origin.[6][1]
The fragment could presumably have been ejected from the Earth by a large meteorite impact. The analysis of other trace elements in the zircon grains indicated that they formed about four billion years ago, during Earth'sHadean eon. If confirmed, that result would make the fragment the oldest known Earth rock and the first meteorite from Earth found in another celestial body.[6][7]
The authors of the analysis noted that the Moon might be a better place to look for ancient Earth rocks than Earth itself, as material erodes much slower on the Moon's surface than it does on Earth, and that other such fragments may be embedded in Apollo samples.[1]
However, a more recent study disputes the terrestrial origin claim, observing that measurement of other trace elements (includinggallium,germanium,zinc,barium andtantalum) in those zircon inclusions deviate significantly from those typically found in terrestrial granite rocks, and suggest instead a lunar origin.[2]
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