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| Moon dust" collected by Apollo 11, the first manned space shuttle to land on the moon, sold for $1.8 million (2 billion won). / Yonhap |
By Lee Han-soo
Moon dust" collected by Apollo 11, the first manned space shuttle to land on the moon, sold for $1.8 million (2 billion won) at an auction on Thursday, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The dust, gathered by astronaut Neil Armstrong and placed in a pouch labeled "lunar sample return," was sold at Sotheby's auction house for Nancy Lee Carlson, a Chicago lawyer and space enthusiast.
She earlier had won a legal dispute with the U.S. government over who owned the dust after a thief named Max Ary stole it in 2003.
When Ary was arrested and the dust was seized, the government sold the pouch in 2015 after mixing it up with another pouch. Carlson bought the moon dust for $995.
When she sent the dust to be tested at NASA, the bag's contents were confirmed.
The space authority then refused to hand it back to Carlson, but a court ruled that she had obtained the dust legally
Carlson plans to donate a portion of the $1.8 million to charities, and to set up a scholarship at Northern Michigan University, her alma mater.
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