http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/8074265.htm
Moon rock on a roll: to Honduras Miami Herald March 1, 2004 Honduran President Ricardo Maduro over the weekend was presented with a tiny lunar rock that made a meandering journey through Central America and South Florida -- passing through the hands of a Broward businessman -- after it was plucked from the moon by Apollo astronauts and given to Honduras by President Nixon in 1973. ''Thank you for returning this material that is so valuable to the world,'' said Maduro, in a ceremony on Saturday attended by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe and Peruvian astronaut Carlos Noriega. The rock, scooped off the moon and presented to Honduran dictator Gen. Osvaldo L�pez Arellano, was sold by a retired Honduran colonel to Alan J. Rosen, a businessman who lived in Pembroke Pines, in 1996. Rosen offered $20,000 plus a truck worth $10,000. Federal agents heard Rosen was trying to unload the rock and, in a raid, recovered the rock from an Aventura bank vault. Rosen was not charged. NASA had turned over the moon rock to the Honduran ambassador in September after a federal court ruled the chunk rightfully belonged to Honduras. For a while after Honduras was given the rock, it was displayed in the presidential residence, mounted inside a transparent globe on a wooden plaque bearing the Honduran flag. But it disappeared sometime between 1990 and 1994 and was not recovered until 1998. Confiscated from Rosen and tested for authenticity by NASA, the 3.5-billion-year-old rock stayed in the United States during a four-year court battle for possession. The rock, which measures about half an inch in length, will be placed on public exhibition in the Centro Interactivo Chiminike, an education center in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa that receives hundreds of young student visitors a day. ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
