Watch out for fakes. Even museums are fooled. The famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a "moon rock" that isn't from the moon. The U.S. ambassador had given the rock to the Dutch prime minister when the Apollo 11 astronauts visited the Netherlands in 1969. The former ambassador says he got it from the U.S. State Department and thought it was authentic. When the museum was given the rock in 1988, officials there called NASA and were told that the rock could be real. Now we know it's just a piece of petrified wood. It will stay on display as a "curiosity."
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
MOON ROCK IN RIJKSMUSEUMN IS PETRIFIED WOOD
Watch out for fakes. Even museums are fooled. The famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a "moon rock" that isn't from the moon. The U.S. ambassador had given the rock to the Dutch prime minister when the Apollo 11 astronauts visited the Netherlands in 1969. The former ambassador says he got it from the U.S. State Department and thought it was authentic. When the museum was given the rock in 1988, officials there called NASA and were told that the rock could be real. Now we know it's just a piece of petrified wood. It will stay on display as a "curiosity."
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2 comments:
Point of order --- the story was "corrected" by the Associated Press in the Netherlands. The ambassador gave two certified moon rocks to the Dutch government during a visit by the astronauts. No one knows how the piece of petrified wood (which had belonged to a former prime minister) came to be confused with those authentic moon rocks which are still with the government (and on public display)
A great companion article to this one, which may or may not have been covered in Kovels Komments, is the story about the Cleveland, Ohio (?) museum which had been displaying a lock of Amelia Earhart's hair that turned out to be string.
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