A moon mineral has been discovered in Australia.
Tranquillityite was named after the Sea of Tranquility, site of Apollo 11’s 1969 landing site. Like the other two minerals found in rocks brought back from that mission, it was long assumed to be unique to the Moon’s surface. Well, until now.
We know science will provide a handy geological explanation, but it’s far easier and more amusing to look to the movies for answers. Consider the following.
The mineral was smuggled in by the Cybertronian spacecraft, Ark, but those scenes may have been cut from Transformers: Dark of the Moon
It was mined, along with helium-3, by automated harvesters but AI assistant GERTY ddn’t let Lunar Industries employee Sam Bell know why in Moon
It was discovered in 1899 by Victorian astronauts, although not without trouble from those pesky lunar inhabitants, Selenites, and brought back to earth in a gravity-free shapeship, as shown in H.G. Well’s First Men In The Moon
Unintentional crash landing of alien spacecraft brought the sample as we learn from the Ray Bradbury classic, It Came from Outer Space
Or it never came from the Moon at all. That’s what Capricorn One
What other movies do you think best explain the tranquillityite question?
