I got to put this one in your bag before I can get it

Ok

These have been described as...

...the most expensive rocks in the world

Until NASA's Apollo moon missions...

...they'd laid on the lunar surface for millions of years...

...undisturbed by humans

Coming off this rock here, but it looks like caliche

From 1969 to 1972

The Eagle has landed

There were six Apollo missions...

...which returned to Earth with samples

It was hoped they'd uncover secrets about the Moon...

...they ended up teaching scientists a lot about the Earth too

Nine containers of lunar samples were brought back to Earth

Scientists studying the rocks...

...learnt a great deal about the many impacts...

...early in the Moon's development

These created huge craters...

...some the size of large countries

Ancient volcanic eruptions then filled some of these basins...

...with vast plains of lava...

...creating the dry seas...

...that can be seen by humans on Earth...

...billions of years later

But the moon rocks also revealed...

...the biggest impact...

...was the one that created the Moon itself

Scientists found the Moon rocks to be surprisingly...

...perhaps disappointingly, like those on Earth

It turns out that the Earth and the Moon...

...are chemically very similar indeed, as if twins

It was this revelation that led to a game-changing idea...

...the giant impact theory

The latest version of this theory...

...involves the new idea of a synestia

In this theory...

...the impact fills nearby space with a doughnut of hot vapour

Both the Moon and Earth are formed...

...from the magma rain that resulted

The gravitational pull...

...which binds the Moon and Earth to each other...

...became the main cause...

...of the rise and fall of the Earth's ocean tides

Scientists believe these tides could have been crucial...

...for the evolution of animal life on Earth...

...by offering a route from under the sea to above it

For almost 50 years...

...no human has returned to the Moon

Now missions are being planned to its unexplored territories

Just as the United States was the first nation to reach the Moon...

...in the 20th century...

...so too will we be the first nation to return astronauts...

...to the Moon in the 21st century

The hope of the next generation of scientists...

...is that by studying new samples of rock...

...they can unlock many more of the Moon's secrets...

...and even some of the Earth's