A piece of moon rock gifted to Ireland following NASA's historic Apollo 11 mission in 1969 was tragically destroyed in a fire, newly uncovered documents from Ireland's National Archives reveal.

Apollo 11. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed in the Lunar Module Eagle and became the first humans to step foot on the lunar surface while astronaut Michael Collins ...

T minus 25 seconds…20 seconds and counting…T minus 15 seconds…guidance is internal…12, 11, 10, 9…ignition sequence starts…6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0…all engines running…lift-off, we have ...

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Apollo 11 lunar samples, themselves. Although many of those displays have gone missing in the intervening years, the fate of Ireland's Apollo 11 ...