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Historic 'moon issue' of Science freely available

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American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Historic 'Moon Issue' of Science

image: Meteoritic body (4mm in diameter), composed of Ni-Fe and FeS, mimics man's image of the moon. This fragment crashed on the moon. The event produced a liquid drop, which collapsed as it cooled in the lunar gravitational field. The upper side of the fragment was abraded by lunar dust and struck by splashed lunar fragments traveling at crater-forming speeds. view more 

Credit: V.E. Krantz, Smithsonian Institution

The historic 30 January 1970 edition of the journal Science, featuring analysis of the first geological samples from the Moon, is now freely available to the public to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing on 20 July 1969.

Reporters and members of the public may log on to the Web site www.sciencemag.org/apollo11 and register to access the special first lunar edition, which is now part of the Science Classic archive, maintained by the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The special issue, 335 pages in length, was one of the largest issues ever published by Science and includes an editorial by the late U.S. science icon Philip Hauge Abelson, then editor of Science. "The successful Apollo 11 mission placed experimental equipment on the moon and brought back 22 kilograms of lunar materials," Abelson wrote. "Our decision to publish these reports was a close one. The material was to be four times the volume of a usual issue."

"On the positive side was the fact that the examination of lunar samples was a unique event and that Science with its broad international circulation (120 countries) could best serve as publisher."

Brooks Hanson, deputy managing editor for Science, said the 30 January 1970 issue of Science was significant because "it illustrated how the science, including the ability to analyze geological samples collected directly from another body in the solar system, revolutionized our understanding of the formation of the Earth, Moon, and solar system."

Also included in the special issue were a summary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Science Conference, measurements of the age of the Moon, findings of rare Earth elements in the lunar samples of soils and rocks, research on the composition of sun and solar wind processes, general mineralogy from the Sea of Tranquility, insights into important rock-forming processes, and organic chemistry.

The Moon landing took place on 20 July 1969 when Apollo 11 Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to step off the Lunar Module, named "Eagle," walked on the surface of the Moon. Armstrong famously described the experience as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." He was then joined by Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. The mission was the fulfillment of President John F. Kennedy's goal to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, an historic quest that led to the launch of the U.S. human space flight program.

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A high-resolution image of the historic cover is available. Please contact Natasha Pinol, senior communications officer, at 202-326-7088 or npinol@aaas.org for further details.

About Science

Founded in 1880 by Thomas Edison and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Science ranks as the world's largest general science journal. Each week, Science provides more than 131,000 global subscribers with peer-reviewed original research, scientific research articles, science and research news, and more.

About AAAS

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. The nonprofit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert! at www.eurekalert.org, the premier science news website, a service of AAAS.


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