14425 (3) Glass Sphere
Collection:
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope

Fact sheet

14425 (3) Glass Sphere

14425 is a black glass sphere about 0.8 cm in diameter. About 5% of the surface is covered with bright grey metallic globules. Micrometeorite craters are also observed on the surface, but have apparently not been studied. The interior glass has partially devitrified. This large glass sphere was sieved from the “bulk soil sample” (14163) collected near the lunar module. The bulk composition is similar to the Apollo 14 regolith – it is not volcanic in origin. Two types of glass are visible in the thin section. One is clear and devoid of metallic spheres. The other area is cloudy with numerous small metallic iron spherules with ~10 % Ni and up to 9% P. Because of the isotropic nature of the glass, there are no rotations in this virtual microscope.

The sample weighed 0.794 grams before analysis.

Further details of this and other Apollo samples are here: http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/
 

About this collection

The Apollo 14 landing site was in a region formed by impact-basin debris.

Most of the 42 kilograms of rocks and soil collected on Apollo 14 are breccias (rocks that are composed of fragments of other, older rocks). In some cases, the rock fragments that form a breccia are themselves breccias. Such rocks obviously have experienced complex histories with multiple generations of impact events. Some breccias were heated enough that some of the material in the rock was melted. 

Apollo 14 was launched on 31 January 1971.

Sample details

Collection: Apollo 14
Type
metamorphic
Rock-forming mineral
glass
Accessory minerals
metallic iron
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: