Accelerate progress in our three core enterprises — Explore Worlds, Find Life, and Defend Earth. You can support the entire fund, or designate a core enterprise of your choice.
Samples from Space Scientists have applied a wide range of techniques to analyzing extraterrestrial materials. This microscopic photograph (a little over one millimeter across the field of view) of a lunar basalt was made by shining polarized light through a wafer of rock (30 micrometers thick). The shapes and sizes of the minerals indicate that the rock crystallized in a lava flow. Pyroxene appears as orange and blue; the gray is feldspar. Courtesy of G. Jeffrey Taylor