A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as loose material and rocks. These samples may be obtained in a number of ways, such as soil and rock excavation or a collector array used for capturing particles of solar wind or cometary debris. Nonetheless, concerns have been raised that the return of such samples to planet Earth may endanger Earth itself.
The Genesis Rock, returned by the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971.
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission shortly after touching down in the desert in Utah
A meteorite thought to be from Mars
Apollo 11 was the first mission to return extraterrestrial samples.
Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as meteorites.
Olivine basalt collected from the rim of Hadley Rille by the crew of Apollo 15
Processing facility in Lunar Sample Building at JSC
Slice of Moon rock at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC
Genesis Rock returned by the Apollo 15 mission.