Fact sheet
64559 is a piece of the dark lithology from a dimict breccia and was collected as a rake sample. The texture of 64559 is that of a basalt, but since it includes clasts of anorthosite, it is described as an impact melt breccia. Both rotations show the junction between basaltic and anorthositic components. A relatively large composite clast of metallic iron mantled by troilite is visible in reflected light.
The sample weighed 21.8 grams before analysis and has not been dated.
Further details of this and other Apollo samples are here: http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/
The Apollo 16 landing site was in the hilly region around Descartes crater in the lunar highlands. The landing spot was chosen to allow the astronauts to gather geologically older lunar material (Descartes Formation and the Cayley Formation) than the samples obtained in the first four landings, which were in or near lunar maria.
The mission lasted 11.1 days, with a stay on the lunar surface of 71 hours. The crew were on the lunar surface for 20.2 hours during which they traversed approximately 27 kilometers and collected approximately 96 kilograms of samples.
Apollo 16 was launched on 16 April 1972.