Fact sheet
71505 is a walnut-sized rock sieved from a rake sample. It is a fine-grained ilmenite basalt with eroded, skeletal olivine phenocrysts (rotation 1) and needles of ilmenite set in a feathery intergrowth of plagioclase-pyroxene. It has a variolitic texture and represents a chilled margin of a lunar lava flow.
The sample weighed 29.5 grams before analysis and has not been dated.
Further details of this and other Apollo samples are here: http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/
Apollo 17, the final manned landing mission, had two objectives: to obtain samples of ancient rocks from the lunar highlands and to look for evidence of younger volcanic activity on the valley floor.
This small Collection contains material deriving from both periods, including igneous rocks around 4.3 billion years old from the lunar highlands as well as younger volcanic samples dating from about 3.6 billion years ago.
Apollo 17 was launched on 7 December 1972.