December 19, 1972: The Apollo 17 crew returned to Earth, completing the final manned moon mission. Their cargo included orange soil they unexpectedly found on the moon.
Geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt turned up the ruddy regolith when he scuffed the soil at Shorty Crater with his boot. Schmitt blurred most of his photographs in his excitement, but his commander, Eugene Cernan, captured this clear picture with a color scale. Crewmate Ron Evans, when told of the discovery, also found and photographed orange patches on the moon from his orbiting spacecraft.
Shorty Crater’s orange soil formed from molten drops that sprayed from a lunar volcanic eruption some 3.64 billion years ago, NASA later determined.
Elizabeth Howell is an award-winning Canadian journalist who can't stop talking about space and science. As a teenager, she saw the movie Apollo 13 and wanted to be an astronaut. That hasn't happened - yet - but at least she gets to write about them. Elizabeth's favourite career moments so far include attending three shuttle launches, and legitimately writing the word "snot" into a Mars Curiosity story. Besides EarthSky, you can read Elizabeth's work in SPACE.com, Universe Today, SEN.com, All About Space and other fun places. Elizabeth's space obsession extends to her hobbies; she's a big fan of Battlestar: Galactica and has met all five TV Star Trek captains. She even visited Captain Kirk's future birthplace in small-town Iowa.
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