CHICAGO (AP) — An Illinois woman’s bag of moon dust brought to earth by Apollo 11 astronauts will be auctioned off later this year.
The Chicago Tribune reports (http://trib.in/2qaZSjj) Nancy Lee Carlson of suburban Chicago bought the moon dust for $995 at a 2015 government auction.
After she sent it to Johnson Space Center for authentication, officials deemed it government property and confiscated it. The government said the “rare artifact” was mistakenly sold. It was recovered in 2003 during a criminal investigation against a Kansas space museum director and misidentified.
A federal judge ruled in December he didn’t have the authority to reverse the sale and the moon dust belonged to Carlson.
The Sotheby’s auction will take place July 20, the 48th anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11.
