Hundreds of moon rocks missing

Several hundred samples of rocks taken from the moon have disappeared in the past four decades, the Inspector General of the US Aerospace Agency (NASA) announced.

>>>Journey to find the moon stone

Paul Martin, Inspector General (NASA), has just released a report on worrisome issues at NASA. The report confirms many researchers borrow moon rocks to find out, but they have never touched them. In addition, several hundred stones that astronauts took from the first moon expedition in 1969 disappeared, the AP reported.

'517 cosmic material samples were lost or stolen between 1970 and October 2010, ' the report said.

Cosmic material samples include rocks and earth of the moon, rocks from meteorites and Mars, ions from the outer layers of the sun, dust from comets and interstellar space, dust from the earth's stratosphere .

'Cosmic material patterns are a rare and finite resource. They play an important role in research and education activities, ' the report said.

A stone is taken from the moon. (Photo: NASA)

Martin emphasized that many of NASA's statistics are inaccurate, while many researchers do not remember the amount of physical samples they borrowed from NASA. They keep material samples longer than the prescribed time, do not research or return them. So NASA needs a better physical sample tracking system and should conduct an annual inventory to prevent losses.

'NASA agrees with our recommendations and promises to act properly' , the inspection team confirmed.

As of March, NASA owns 140,000 moon material samples, 18,000 meteorite pieces, 5,000 dust samples from solar wind, comets and interstellar space. NASA has lent more than 26,000 specimens.

NASA previously acknowledged the loss of cosmic material samples. For example, a researcher lost 18 samples of moon material in 2010.

In 218, the crook stole 218 samples of the moon and meteorite at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. But then those specimens were found.

A few months ago, a piece of moonstone was found in a document container and memos of former US President Bill Clinton. The barrel was preserved in the Arkansas state library.