The first lunar meteorite was discovered in 1982 in Antarctica. Meanwhile more than two dozen other different meteorites from the Moon are known. By comparing the mineralogy, the chemical composition, and the isotopic composition between lunar meteorites and samples from the Moon collected by Apollo missions, origin from the Moon is ascertained.

Lunar meteorites are launched from the Moon by large impacts. Until now, no single crater could be identified as the origin of lunar meteorites. For statistical reasons, the composition of lunar meteorites is closer to the average composition of the lunar surface material than the composition of the samples from Apollo and Luna missions. Apollo and Luna samples are from a relatively small area on the nearside of the Moon, whereas lunar meteorites possibly also samples material from the farside of the Moon.

When the first meteorite from moon was discovered in 1982 this lead to new speculations that there could also exist meteorites from Mars. In fact, the first Martian meteorite was identified in the same year. There are also speculations about the possibility of finding "Earth meteorites" on the surface of the Moon. This would be very interesting because in this case stones from earth older 3.9 billion years, which are destroyed on earth by various geological processes, may have survived on the Moon. Thus some scientists propose new missions to the Moon to search for ancient rocks from Earth.

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